Net Smart: Curation

Net Smart discussed 5 literacies of media use. The chapter that stood out most to me was participation. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m interested in the way social media impacts our relationships. And embarrassingly, I’m a little bit too interested in some internet communities, so I found a lot of his ideas relevant to the way I use and see others use social media.

First: the idea of curation as participation. You don’t need to create create in order to create. The significance of curation is why there are so many successful bloggers, Instagrammers, and Tweeters (seriously, these people make a living just by being social media personalities). By presenting certain information in certain ways, these curators create distinct voices and personalities for themselves that appeal to specific audiences. They don’t necessarily need to create anything on their own, but I can see how a significant amount of work, time, and effort would go into presenting other people’s creations in a careful, audience-driven way. It’s kind of what we do as teachers, right? Often times, we’re presenting other people’s ideas in a creative way to make sure our audience (the students) buys in week after week.

Second: Networks. Did you know there’s an entire community of Instagrammers who just post videos of calligraphy done with magic markers ? And another for videos of cake designers icing cakes? And another for people who are powerlifters? I could go on and on, but the one most relevant to us is the Instagram community for educators. It makes sense, though, because teaching is such a “you wouldn’t understand” field considering the things we deal with on a regular basis. This niche, along with the collaborative nature of teachers and desire for professional development, makes for a huge social media market. Teachers on Instagram do everything from promoting conferences and TPT products to sharing student work to venting about everyday stress. I don’t participate creatively in this community, but it’s a huge part of how I’m developing as a teacher. There are so many ideas I see every day that it’s impossible not to internalize some of it. I don’t take it too seriously, but I definitely like seeing what other teachers are up to. (If you’re not involved already and choose to research this community, I recommend starting with @miss5th, @mrdtimes3, and @pocketfulofprimary and spreading out from there. Proceed with caution, though, because with how often they link other teachers, it’s very easy to get lost in this expansive web and suddenly several hours are gone).

In college, we had to create our own education Twitters to start developing our PLNs, and I found it meaningful to realize there was so much out there related to what I was learning in my classes. I think it would be really interesting to have students participate in their own social network. Lots of schools encourage teachers to have active Twitter accounts, but wouldn’t it be cool to have students act as curators and find information that somehow connects to what they’ve been learning in class? It’s definitely something I’ll consider trying to scaffold for my classroom eventually.