Develop Content

For the Prepare & Reflect quest you spent some time learning and thinking about content curation. Before continuing, let’s consider the content curation quests placement in the badging scheme.

You can see that these quests fall under the Produce challenge, which is itself under the Creator content badge. So it seems there is both a production aspect, and a creation aspect, to content curation.

What is the difference? If you have produced something, have you also created it? We will come back to this issue later in the quest, but keep the question in mind.

In Prepare & Reflect, you considered how curation differs from aggregation, thought about the value of curating information, and identified a topic where you might be able to participate. In this quest, you will have the opportunity to start curating!

Information Overload by Marina Noordegraaf, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

First, read the blog post “26 Free (or Free-to-Try) Content Curation Tools” by Ken Lyons. Be aware that sites and services may have changed since this post was written.

Now, using one of the suggested tools, or a curation service that you have found, it’s time to develop content! You’ve already thought about a topic—this is your chance to try it out.

Assignment

  1. Use a topic that really interests you, which may well be the one you have already identified. (If you have a course assignment for which you are completing this quest, use that topic if so assigned by your instructor.)

  2. Select a free curation service to use, and learn enough about the service to be able to use it.

  3. Curate! Find 5 valuable sources on the topic.

  4. *Remember, content curation includes finding, organizing, and sharing.

  5. *Wait, is it just those 3 elements? Or is something missing? This is a good time to think about the difference between production and creation.

  6. *Is there some way you could enhance what you have put together to make it more valuable, to yourself and others?

  7. Publish your work. Submit the URL of your work, with a couple of sentences about your thoughts on the relationship between creation and production, and how that is reflected in your curated work.

Now, write a reflection on the relationship between creation and production, and how that is reflected in your curated work.