Week 4: Curating the Web!

Weekly Report & Reflection Blog Post #4:

DIIGO and I

Twenty-some-days later and here I still am – spending more time on my computer than I am sleeping.  The lack of sleep is not something new to me, as a matter of fact, from the day I had my kids I have been in zombie land. The only difference now is that I am spending more time on the computer trying to figure out new tools than actually working with them. Not quite sure how I am feeling about this – excited or exhausted – but either which way I am anticipating (being optimistic) that this will change sooner than later.

Wygant. (2011). Addicted to the Internet [Online Image]. 

Link

Between blogging, reading my feeds on Feedly, pinning on my Pinterest, reading interesting resources of this week such as the Internet Detective, and now even 'curating' (yes, it is a word), I think I may have an obsession (or disorder) for technology. It was amusing when I saw the image (posted to the right) that depicted being injected with, what I call, the ‘blood of technology'.  I actually, in an awkward moment, visualized this process happening to me – my only hope (again being optimistic), is that my transfusion will give me a new life in my PLE.

BEING INJECTED WITH SOCIAL BOOKMARKING TOOLS

I have discovered that using RSS feeds such as Feedly, are great to use for sites that are being updated frequently. But what about static sites – these are the sites that do not have the RSSfeed icon located anywhere. But wait, you really want to save the site – so what do you do? Well, as for me, I would just bookmark the site on my internet browser from my PC – give it a name that I hopefully could remember - and when I did want to retrieve it I had to scroll through the list of bookmarks to see if I could remember what I named it in the first place. As you could imagine, this process was time consuming and time is just not something that I can spare.

So, low and behold, to no surprise, there are digital tools that can be used to bookmark static sites (or any site). The main advantage of these social bookmarking tools such as Delicious and DIIGO is their capability to cloud compute. Meaning, in brief, that they give the user the ability to organize, collaborate, and research, by storing saved websites online. This is where the real advantage comes – it allows any user to access their saved sites from any internet device – from anywhere. Yes, anywhere! It also gives the user the ability to highlight areas (great for visual learners) and tag words (cloud it) to make it easier to organize and share with others. This was the selling point for me this week – I just wish I knew about these tools before since it could have saved me hundreds of dollars from printing or e-mailing articles that I knew I needed when I was away from home. Take a look at my DIIGO – it was easy to set up and easy to use, more so than Delicious, but this is just my opinion.

Diigo V5.0: Collect, Highlight and Remember! (2010). [Online Video Image: 0.03]. 

Link

DIIGO is a cloud-based socialbookmarking tool that can be used as a personal information management system.

DIIGO FOR EDUCATORS?  

I posted in my course forum this week about the difficulties I had with visualizing DIIGO in my educator's tool kit. I set up DIGGIO this week and found out that the overwhelming task of setting up this tool to be time consuming – but well worth it.  However, when it came to upgrading to DIIGO for For Educators I contemplated using it in my educator’s PLE. The site had a mandatory question that asked to explain how I plan to use DIIGO with my students?  This is where I was stumped. How was I going to answer that question truthfully when I never used the site in the first place? Sure, this week’s readings have helped in exploring the benefits of social bookmarking tools but we all know that we learn “best’ when we tell, show and do.  I am anticipating that throughout the remaining 8 weeks that I will explore other tools that can be used for educators – but for now my diigo stays personal – well at least just between the internet and I.

“MACHINES AGGREGATE - HUMANS CURATE”

Until this week I have never heard of any tools that assist in curating content on the web such as Storify, Scoop,it, and paper.li. Of all the reading resources this week, I enjoyed Donna’s Papacosta’s explanation of the term – content curation. In brief, she distinguishes between aggregation as tools that use 'machines' to collect information from the internet, such as RSS feeds, whereas "curation adds that human factor of judgment, selection and commentary to selected content". Essentially, using tools such as Storify, or even Pinterest, allows the user to only share the best of the best information with their followers.

 

“If I like it, it’s curation. If I don’t like it, it’s aggregation” 

(Papacosta, 2012). 

I did venture into various curating tools and discovered that I am not a master at curating mainly because it was very time consuming.  Honestly, I wondering if there actually is a difference between using DIIGO or Storify – I may have gotten myself confused on some of the terms used this week between curating and social bookmarking – I still think it is the same.  I know that I did not give all the tools a fair chance since I was quite busy with other daily activities (I do have a life you know). In the end, I choose to set up with Storify – but since then I have neglected it – but feel free to take a look.  I do plan to venture back and give it a chance.

WHAT’S NEW IN MY RSS FEED?

This week I took interest in one of my favourite video post casts in my RSS feeds - TED talks. In this week’s video, Jason Pontin discusses how the world has transformed from the use of technology from the early 1900’s, when the first assembly line was introduced, to 1969, when Buzz Aldrin's first stepped on the moon, to nowadays, where technology has lost its abilities to find solutions to our worlds bigger problems – due mostly to political and societal failure. 

"Life's optimism about technology's powers has evaporated...as big problems we had imagined technology would solve such things as going to mars, creating clean energy, curing cancer or feeding the world - has now come to seem intractably hard" (Pontin, 2013).

Pontin makes you think twice about what technology has really solved. In essence, he lets us appreciate the value of social media applications (and how they have enriched our lives) but puts shame on the human kind for not using it wisely to solve the bigger problems in our world. This video brought me back to Virginia Shea’s rule of remember the human – but this time, in a different content – the content that values humanity against the benefits of a machine. 

There is no dispute that technology has enriched our lives – but what Pontin focuses on is essentially how humans have found more interest in toys (since these are more marketable and therefore more of a financial benefit to our economy) than flying humans back to mars or finding a cure for cancer.  Of course, I am cynical to some of Pontin’s views and wonder if his views are more for trashing political views rather than the essential benefits that technologists have provided to our society. However, I am always up to good debates and listening to others point of views and Pontin’s views was worth sharing.

Pontin. (2013). [Online Video Image: 04:15]
Link

“Something happen to our capacity to solve big problems with technology….it seems like technologists have diverted us and enriched themselves with trivial toys instead of solving the larger issues that the world is faced with” 

(Pontin, 2013).

FINAL THOUGHTS - ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF MY PLE 

I am sure that I do not have to reiterate the advantage that I found in this week’s digital tools. DIIGO and Storify, are both tools wherein I can organize, retrieve and share information from any internet device. Remember I am a big believer that sharing is the key to learning - so, the more I share, the more you share and the more we learn - the circle of learning! It makes sense that great tools plus great connections equals a greater chance of enhancing one’s PLN.  This in turn, reflects in my PLE as tools that I can utilize to collaborate as well as to aggregate (opps, I mean curate). 
Looking forward to the next week and 'injecting' Twitter into my blood...and my PLE too :)
Stay tuned...

References:
Papacosta, D. (2012, November 20). Content curation Online video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scrhXBLvH2w#t=1656

Pontin, P. (2013, October 4). Jason Pontin: Can technology solve our big problems? Online video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB50BfYlsDc