There are a lot of different versions of the 4 or 5 C’s of 21st century learning, but I’d like to throw out another C that is very important. Curation! Do you know what curation means? It could easily be connected with information literacy skills that we teach to students. Curation is the act of searching, analyzing, selecting, and organizing content.
So are you ready? Hop on the Wakelet Wave and check out this amazing curation tech tool that easily allows you to curate and organize content from across the web.
Wakelet offers a great educator reference book at https://learn.wakelet.com/. It shows you the 4 basic steps of Wakelet: Bookmark, Organize, Collaborate, and Share. Let’s look at each step a bit more.
Bookmark – Wakelet lets users save content from across the web. When you create a Wakelet or join someone else’s you click the + sign and get the option to add things such as:
YouTube – video only, no ads
Links
PDFs
Tweets
Text
Videos
Articles
Images
If you are working in a collection you already started, you can add the bookmark right in the collection. It also adds it to your bookmark page, Who knows!? You might decide to reuse a bookmark in another collection later.
Organize – Wakelet user’s get a homepage of sorts that displays your curated bookmarks in a beautiful graphic display called a collection. Here are 2 of my collections.
Collaborate - Wakelet allows you to invite others to collaborate on a collection with you. They do not need a personal account. Students 13 and older can have their own account. But, younger kiddos are not left out! Children under 13 can use the join code you get with each collection. Be sure to read Wakelet’s Terms and Privacy notices to see COPPA and FERPA information you would need to know as an educator.
Share - Wakelet is easy to share with others. You can share a link to your public profile which is similar to a homepage. https://wakelet.com/@laurasheneman
Or you can share link to a specific collection. https://wke.lt/w/s/66HZDT
Sharing is easy. At the top of each collection or your profile page, the creator has a Share button. When it opens, you can choose which share option you want.
I recently watched a great Wakelet webinar from some ed tech gurus. https://wke.lt/w/s/eThB1n Here are some of my notes and other ideas I’ve added.
Handy things for Educators to know:
It was recognized by AASL as one of the 2019 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning.
It’s free!
Wakelet can be accessed via app or website.
There is a Google Chrome extension.
There are no storage limits.
You can create as many collections you like.
You can add collaborators (think students or teacher collaborators) to your Wakelets.
Each collection has its own join code.
Implementation Ideas for Your Library
Newsletters
Follow Erin Flanagan – https://wakelet.com/@erintegration She created some templates you can grab to make your own monthly newsletter.
Students can make school/class newsletter when you set up Wakelet and give students join code as editors to add content. What would they say about their library?!!
Meet the Teacher Wakelets
Again, Erin Flanagan https://wakelet.com/@erintegration has some great ideas on her site.
Quick Links
You could make a Wakelet of quick links students need to access for research, explore time, homework, etc.
You could create a Wakelet for each class that visits the library.
Collaborate with the teacher
Librarian can add content based on what classes are studying like States/Mammals/Chemical Changes
Students can add their reports or other assignments.
Students will need a join code to add to the specific collection
Use for Presentations
Use a Wakelet to share your next presentation to students or teachers
Have all of your resources linked right there for the audience
They can keep the Wakelet link to refer back to later.
Showcase Student work/Student Portfolio
Reading Logs/Portfolio of Reading
Class or individual logs
Reflections
Book cover
Book trailers
Photos of creative projects you’ve made, …
Have fun exploring this fun site and tag us with a link to your Wakelet!
Librarian Influencers of the Week: AASL Best Websites for Teaching and Learning committee! The committee members are listed at http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards/best/websites