With the growing wealth of online learning materials coupled with well-organized, in-house microlearning episodes, knowing how to curate content is becoming exceedingly important. That's because it filters the best training and development materials while allowing learners to find the resources best suited for their individual needs.
Content Curation Tools & Methods
As the quality and availability of external professional development resources evolves and improves, many third-party learning materials are as good as or even better than what could be produced in house—which means recreating those materials could turn into a serious waste of time, money, and resources. That's why it's so important to consider a mix of in-house and external content to create a well-rounded approach to blended learning.
Learning designers can take several approaches when it comes to curation. For instance, external content may be cross-linked within internal training materials or shared directly via social media platforms or content management systems. These approaches can provide more control, but they also can be tedious and time consuming—especially when learning designers don’t have HTML or coding expertise.
A more effective approach is delegating curation to learners. For example, learners can rate or vote on shared resources based on usefulness. The more votes materials have, the more they’re promoted. Learners also can follow one another to narrow the focus of resources they see in regard to their own areas of interest.
Curation vs. Search
There’s an argument that search engines, such as Google, are reducing the need for curation. After all, if learners can find what they want on their own, they don’t need curated content—right?
Maybe. Search engines aren’t always efficient when it comes to filtering the good content from the bad—particularly for specialized subjects. Curation, on the other hand, gives learners the advantage of discovering materials that are accurate, helpful, and on topic.
Up Next: How to use xAPI to curate content
In the next post, we’ll delve deeper into content curation and discuss methods for helping learners avoid irrelevant content and explain how you can use xAPI to support the curation process.
About the author
As one of the authors of xAPI, Andrew Downes has years of expertise in data-driven learning design. With a background in instructional design and development, he’s well versed in creating learning experiences and platforms in corporate and academic environments.
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