Top 5 curation tools for corporate learning
November 8, 2013 Leave a comment
The following article was first included in a Brightwave white paper, Curation: content and tools to support continuous learning.
There are literally hundreds of freely available curation tools on the web, so which one is right for you? When choosing a curation tool for corporate learning, consider these questions:
- What’s your topic? Focus on a subject that’s important to your organisation and meets a learning need.
- Who is your audience? Are you happy to share curated content with the world? Or do you need a private space for trusted colleagues?
- Are you sharing or broadcasting? Are you the voice of authority on a specialist subject? Or do you want your audience to take part in the conversation? Decide on whether you need a closed or collaborative learning space.
Here’s a roundup of some of our favourite web-based curation tools. All of these are free to use (but some services offer premium features for a fee) so why not try them out and make up your own mind?
1. Storify
Storify is a “social media curation and publishing platform” which works in a similar way to blogging sites like WordPress and Blogger. Within minutes of signing up to the site we’d published our first ‘story’ (on the Data Protection Act) with a mix of curated and original content. Storify’s powerful search tools combined with the ability to contextualise each story make this a great platform for fostering a community of interest around a specific topic. And if you want to keep your stories and conversations out of public view, sign up to Storify Business so that colleagues can access your site via a secure link.
2. Paper.li
Paper.li automatically finds and promotes articles, photos, videos from your chosen subject area in an online newspaper format. For example, you could start a weekly paper about your business sector to keep colleagues up to date with market trends and expert views. All you have to do is search for the sources you want Paper.li to grab from and define the frequency and update times for your paper. So if you’re looking for automatic aggregation of news stories on a particular subject, Paper.li could be the perfect choice.
3. Scoop.it
Scoop.it lets you edit and publish curated content in an engaging magazine format. A great feature of this service is the Scoop.it bookmarklet, which lets you publish interesting content directly from your browser to the magazine at the click of a button. The Pro and Business versions of this platform also offer analytics packages to help you grow and measure your audience.
4. Pinterest
Pinterest, “a content sharing service that allows members to ‘pin’ images, videos and other objects to their pinboard”, took the web by storm after its launch a few years ago. With its modern and immersive layout, Pinterest is designed to help you discover and explore new visual content. This is a fantastic space to showcase inspirational design work, but, because of its focus on the visual, is less well suited to more structured learning initiatives.
5. BagTheWeb
Like Storify, BagTheWeb lets you quickly and easily curate web content on any topic. A great feature of this site is that you can build networks of related content by linking to other users’ ‘bags’, thereby providing a rich and comprehensive route through your chosen subject area. This site has a strong focus on teaching and learning which makes it attractive to education and L&D professionals.
Download the complete white paper here: Curation: content and tools to support continuous learning
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