Knowing how to search is a competence, and like all competences it needs to be acquired and developed. Through suitable exercises, students are allowed to increase their level of awareness and use criteria to recognize information reliability and usefulness.
Content curation can turn into a pedagogical tool to encourage critical investigation in the digital age. The acquisition of competences in this sense allows to create a bridge between informal learningAny learning that is not formal learning or non-formal learning, such as self-directed learning or learning from experience Leggi that takes place outside the school context and the formal one, in the direction of the development of critical investigations, dialogue and involvement through new forms of creation, care and dissemination of contents.
For Nancy White, content curation allows students to learn more deeply and passionately:
Students who are given choice in selecting a topic for curating are far more likely to engage in deeper learning, in my experience. Providing some parameters to keep the project aligned with content and standards is still possible, provided you offer a broad range of topics and give students the flexibility to take the curation project in a direction that they can personally connect with. This begins to resemble passion-based learning and genius hour.
The National Library of New Zealand encourages the practice of content curation in schools, as a strategy for developing digital literacy, by making a range of guidelines and resources available to teachers and students. On the library web page, we find listed the benefits of content curation at school:
Teachers have deep subject knowledge essential to evaluating digital resources for learning. Expertise in curating content provides a reliable starting point for students’ initial research. Guiding them to quality online resources right from the start helps students’ learning.
By becoming a content curatorA curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections. Leggi, you can:
- help prevent students becoming overwhelmed by digital information,
- guide the development of students’ digital literacy skills in the process,
- scaffold learning how to navigate online information successfully.
Through using curated collections, students learn to:
- recognize a quality resource,
- choose the best source of information for their needs, be it print, digital or a person,
- widen their personal learning networks by using a variety of resources.
Teachers can use curated content to encourage parents to become involved in school life by:
- gathering resources to support reading at home,
- explaining new technologies,
- educating parents about topics such as digital literacy and digital citizenship.