Turns out I have been curating content without know what it was. While there are formal and perhaps better definitions available, content curation is collecting and sharing good material about a subject in a way that could be useful for someone else. However, the key is to add your insight, your ideas to make it easier for that someone else to use your collection.
First example, I love books. I want people to read more. Students are people. Using this weird logic inspired me to start a reading space in one of our tutoring spaces with two simple arm chairs and a book shelf. These books are free to take and read and if you forget to bring them back, no one will know. It should be called the mini-library of books Irene has already read. Because that is how the books get there, once I am done reading them – I put them on the shelf.
Recently, one of my tutors asked about the books. He had thought about reading one but did not know where to start. We sat by the shelf and went through the general categories of books that were there and then, once he had pick on of those, we went through the authors and stories available in that group. The impressions and knowledge I had about the books were needed to help him make a choice. Simply putting the books on the shelf was not quite enough.
Second example, I am looking for a Baked Tomato Recipe. I remember having a baked tomato and it was really good. I want one (or three) again but I don’t know how to make it. I have a collection of baked tomato recipes on Pinterest with notes about if the recipe is getting close to what I remember. I hope that, someday, I will be able to find the perfect baked tomato recipe and be able to back up my claim with the evidence of all the other recipes that didn’t quite make the cut!
