Gen C is a powerful new force in consumer culture. It’s a term we use to describe people who care deeply about creation, curation, connection, and community. It’s not an age group; it’s an attitude and mindset defined by key characteristics. 80% of millennials are made up of Gen C, YouTube’s core (though by no means only) audience. – https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/introducing-gen-c-the-youtube-generation/
Why just use the internet for downloading and information gathering when you can use it to create and contribute through being a digital curator (Howell, 2013, p.136)? A digital curator finds and collects artefacts on a specific topc then shares them with other like-minded people (Flintoff, Mellow & Clark, 2014). A curator adds, edits and nurtures comments, filters content and analyses the usage of the site (Flintoff et al., 2014). When a community of people come together and collaborate over a topic or a project, a process of social learning occurs which is knows as a Community of Practice or CoP (Howell, 2013, p.33).
Using a digital curation activity in the learning process changes the focus from plain creative to a digital creation. The digital content can then be produced and shared online with other learners (Howell, 2013, pp.89,136). Using a digitial curation tool in an educational setting enables the students to use critical thinking skills when collecting, evaluating and analysing content (Johnson, 2018). Allowing students to become curators, creates an environment of collaboration, cooperating and crowd sourcing, which are powerful educational resources (Flintoff et al., 2014). The students gain a deeper understanding of the topic and a higher sense of personal responsibility for their learning (Johnson, 2018). Using an online tool does not necessarily mean that the collection must be made public, keeping the collection private allows for a more informal collection (Flintoff et al., 2014). Teachers can use collections as part of assessment and data gathering by having students add their initials to the items they contribute, therefore able to acknowledge each students contribution to the task (Flintoff et al., 2014).
The digital universe is here to stay, embedding ICT pedagagies into the classroom will help prepare students to enter the workforce as digitally fluent employees (Howell, 2013, pp.11,12). The ability to communicate, interact and publish on a global level would be a beneficial contribution to their workforce readiness (Johnson, 2018).
Please click on the below link to see my Wakelet and Pinterest collections on Digital Curation
https://www.pinterest.com.au/karynlowe1972/digital-curation/
Teaching and Learning in a Digital World 