No matter where we look these days, the idea of personalized information streams continue to be supported by new tools, or new ways of working with existing tools – and all linked to our mobile devices in some way. For example, where-ever I am, I’m constantly adding items to my public Facebook feed, which ( I have to admit) has remained a constant as any number of other tools have come and gone. I need my tools to interrelate – all the time – easily, and quickly!
What interests me is the amazing uptake of ScoopIT. I was an early adopter myself, but have now taken a different view of the value of the tool – driven by Pinterest. Yes, I’m losing interest in ScoopIT – and here’s why.
I’m not interested in using the ‘built-in’ curation tool that Scoopit offers – it’s just not good enough at sourcing the professional feeds I want.
I’m not interested in having to use a browser-add on – as I just may not be at my computer to Scoop!
In case you haven’t noticed, a Facebook page looks pretty much the same as a ScoopIT page – so guess what – now I am favouring Facebook to do what ScoopIT has been doing! e.g. Digital Citizenship in Schools vs Digital Citizenship in Schools.
BUT the ScoopIT ecosystem gets so much more traction! Despite that, I am (like others) now getting really bored with ScoopIT links in Twitter, or Facebook. When I click on a recommended link I prefer to go directly to the sources. So there is the dilemma – to Scoop or to FaceBook? I wonder what you think?
I also became jaded with ScoopIT me when it insisted on a monthly package upgrade to be able to stream my content to multiple Scoops. Even ScoopIT education wants a monthly payment. After some emails to try and explain that schools and educational institutions do prefer an annual fee for payment, nothing was put on offer. #FAIL
The other interesting change is the lack of ScoopIT buttons on mainstream pages. You can Tweet, FB, G+, LinkedIn or Pin – but you can’t Scoop! #FAIL
So while I ramble on, the real reason for writing this post is to reflect on just how much content organisation and curation keeps shifting. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are fluid places of relentless change.
Thinking about tomorrow?
Check out the new eBook feature enabled in Wikipedia.
We’re happy to announce that a new EPUB export feature has been enabled on English Wikipedia. You can use it to collate your personal collection of Wikipedia articles and generate free ebooks. These can be read on a broad range of devices, like mobile phones, tablets and e-ink based e-book readers.
This is a whole new ball-game for educators. Consider the option of getting students (Secondary or graduate) to write content for Wikipedia, and publish it as their assessment if it is worthwhile? Consider the teacher or lecturer producing content that is related to a particular discipline and distributing it via this eBook feature – puts a whole new twist on open source publishing! Consider putting your learning materials into Wikipedia and weaving it together to package a knowledge element or topic of investigation? I think this is a real ‘watch this space’ moment once again.
There’s an explanation and explanatory video at Animals in Space. Basic – but you get the idea. Is this the start of a new shift in information delivery spearheaded by Wikipedia? I hope so, in the sense that we need to have information from many sources and repositories, but in the first instance we may simply have to plug into Wikipedia with our content. For example, I am toying with the idea of some new ways to assess ‘collection development’ for an Master’s level subject. Prompted by the media release from Wikipedia about the eBook feature, I scanned relevant resources and came up sharply against the lack of good material. Given that Wikipedia is highly searched information source on generalist information I began to see writing material for Wikipedia as being far more authentic and worthwhile than writing an essay. Still written, but suddenly, with the option for an audience, multimedia content and hyperlinks the learning experience takes on a new focus. More thinking on this, but I’m tipping that I won’t be the only teacher who begins to see new uses for Wikipedia.
Another tool that caught my eye today was Media2Go. Badged as a new reading experience, it’s just another way of ‘packaging’ what you want. I’m never that keen on such tools, and (as I mentioned) I’m ‘over’ browser buttons (having lost count of ones used and ditched as media changed)! While I understand that business or corporate users of such tools may have a focussed area of reading, in education we do need to keep open and flexible.
But still worth a try, as its concept has some exciting possibilities. As they explain, the key aims are:
1. Cut out the noise
Bookmarks, saved articles, feeds –we’ve got all those on our browsers too, but how often do you really go back and read all the content you’ve saved? Right at the point of reading, you should be able to see topics that pique your interest and pull content on those topics instantly and without having to sift through tons of articles.2. YOUR world. YOUR opinion.
We strongly think that we CAN NOT, CAN NOT become a society of homogenized opinions. It’s YOUR world and YOU should have a say in where you get your content from.
Maybe this IS tomorrow?
judyoconnell.com 
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This is such a helpful post and captures a lot of my frustration with curation at the moment – so much noise, so little time to DO something with it all even when it is successfully curated.
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I’ve been on Scoop since beta, and I’m trying to decide whether to stay, too, since so few people know what it is and, like you said, they want you to pay for cool stuff. Then again, they have at least added social sharing so that you can tell people what it is you’re scooping.
How exactly are you using Facebook for the same thing? My issue is that given that I scoop things that are mostly text and not about images, Pinterest doesn’t seem like it will get me a whole lot of followers or do much better than Scoop in that regard.
Facebook pages look pretty much the same. So what tool suits your needs?
I like the Wikipedia eBooks idea for education, especially because many students don’t have internet access once they leave campus, but how can we reconcile this with the fact that it’s been drilled into their heads that Wikipedia is not a reliable source?
It’s true that Wikipedia should only be a jumping-off point for students – so the next step is for us to capitalize on it by continuing to add quality content.