{"id":242,"date":"2017-09-03T11:26:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-03T18:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/orientation\/?page_id=242"},"modified":"2020-04-22T19:23:23","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T02:23:23","slug":"curating-u","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/orientation\/digital-skills\/curating-u\/","title":{"rendered":"Curating U"},"content":{"rendered":"

This activity is a remix of @CogDog’s<\/a> post The Indispensable Digital Research Tool I can Say, Without Lying, Saves Time.<\/a> I have changed very little of his post other than a few typos and changing the OPML file that he makes available. I can do this because Alan is generous and he licenses his work under a Creative Commons license (see below).<\/p>\n

I sometimes tell people that when technology evangelists espouse that their tool saves you time, that it\u2019s a red flag warning \/ code talk for \u201cI am lying\u201d.<\/p>\n

But here, I share my one, career tested exception; it\u2019s old technology that many people have abandoned. I will wade carefully through the acronym jargon, but it\u2019s using an RSS Feed Reader to monitor the most recent news, blog posts, data from sources you choose to follow, not dished out by some algorithm.<\/p>\n

I am going to mostly skip talking about what RSS is beyond a lightweight summary of web site news stories \/ blog posts. An RSS reader allows you, in one interface, to quickly skim the recent publications for maybe 100s of web sites without having to visit them.<\/p>\n

People will claim they can replace RSS Readers with social media streams like Twitter<\/a>, and while I do get many key resources and news stories via social media, let me dispute the claim:<\/p>\n

Clutter, noise, distraction.<\/h5>\n

What you get is interspersed with many things that are outside your interests, rants, yelling, silly gifs. That\u2019s a lot of filtering.<\/p>\n

You Miss It, You Lose it.<\/h5>\n

Social media is focused at the head of the stream. While you sleep or actually do something productive away from social media, it all flows away. Yes, maybe your network can signal with repeating important things, but its spotty.<\/p>\n

Duplication.<\/h5>\n

You have no means to quickly know what you have already looked at, and you see may the same story multiple times.<\/p>\n

You Are Subject to Algorithms.<\/h5>\n

Especially on Facebook, what you see is determined by the mysteries of an algorithm. Sure you choose sources by followers, but the means by which information is presented is determined by some outside automated entity.<\/p>\n

Tools<\/h4>\n

There are a number of Feed reader tools to choose from, and I am not going to advocate any as \u201cbest\u201d \u2014 they all more or less perform the same function. What\u2019s more important is knowing (a) how to build your sources; (b) how to logically organize them; and (c) optionally how to curate items out of the big pile.<\/p>\n

Personally I use Digg Reader<\/a> for my own perusing; mostly because it has become familiar, intuitive, and is not broken. But I am going to explain how to use another one, Feedly<\/a>, as I typically set it up when I am teaching a new course where my students will be blogging.<\/p>\n

If you are participating in a class where you need to blog and keep up with other students’ posts (or you teach a class where your students blog) it can be quite a chore to systematically, check 10, 20, 30 or more blogs on a regular basis. And yes, while I often build WordPress based aggregator sites, that\u2019s still not quite efficient for regular review when I am teaching.<\/p>\n

See also [Ed. – for faculty], Alan’s 5 part compendium on creating a WordPress based feed hub<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just to make it more clear why I see this valuable, here is a look at my Feedly with subscriptions to the blogs from students in the Spring 2017 Networked Narratives course.<\/p>\n

RSS Reader summary of blog activity for 20 student blogs<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On the left are the listings of the 20 blogs, but by viewing them at the \u201cCollection\u201d view (like a folder) on the right I can see the latest posts from all blogs. At a glance I can see ones I have not read as the titles are bold.<\/p>\n

Do you not see how this saves time? I open Feedly and right away I can get a pulse on the blog activity in my class. I can click headlines to open each one in the list, or better, I can use keyboard shortcuts like ‘j’ for next item and ‘k’ for previous to quickly review the blog posts\u2013 without even leaving this view<\/p>\n

Reading one student post in feedly<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I have a range of sharing options, but this way to page through posts saves time. Now I may want to leave a comment, or maybe see how it looks on their blog, so I can just click the title of the post in expanded view to visit the site.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the view of the whole class, if I click one student\u2019s blog title on the left, I can again, quickly see the activity for that one student, and ones I have not read again are bold.<\/p>\n

The feed view from one student blog.<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If I go to their site, I\u2019d have to remember in my head if I read a post.<\/p>\n

Can you really do this better in Twitter? Good luck.<\/p>\n

I am also skipping another level of time saving amazement; for all my student blogs (ones using WordPress or Blogger) I have a matching set of information on the comments on their blog. In the same ways, I can see and review the comment activity on all my student blogs or down to one single blog.<\/p>\n

Again, if you do not see the way this saves time, feel free to close this window now. Have a nice day.<\/p>\n

Now to try Feedly, just go create an account there<\/a> (I use my gmail account to login). Now it\u2019s going to be empty and they will ask you to add sources.<\/p>\n

You start with no feeds!<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/i>Advanced-level Feedly in here...you can skip if you'd like.<\/div>
\n

Now take a breath, here come a few more acronyms. I will explain how to make these later, but there is an additional data file format called OPML (not even worth saying what it stands for<\/a>, it\u2019s in XML format- oh no that is my third acronym, I am done).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s more or less a package of subscriptions to feeds you can add all at once, and will automatically create the grouping like you see in my class ones above.<\/p>\n

I have one such set you can play with, it\u2019s a few various feeds of stuff I read regularly. Download the Readables OPML File<\/a><\/p>\n

Click that Import Sources button at the bottom (or Import OMPL in top right), select the file, and SHAZAM, you should get this \u201cvaluable\u201d collection<\/p>\n

The collection view of all recent stories in the 7 sources in the OPML file<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now an important thing I forgot to mention AND THAT ALSO SAVES TIME is, once subscribed, Feedly will automatically update your stuff while you are away.<\/p>\n

As an aside, my preference for viewing is by the Title Only View, which you can select from the \u201cHamburger\u201d menu:<\/p>\n

####### Choosing the view for stories<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You can set this as a preference, and many others I\u2019m skipping, if you click your icon in the top right and select Preferences from the menu.<\/p>\n

So in my upcoming thesis seminar class, I will import an OPML file for all the blogs from my Kean students<\/a> (not yet available) and maybe a second collection for the students in Mia Zamora\u2019s DIKULT 303 class at University of Bergen<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

But for your own courses, research, or interests, you will build your own set of feeds. In Feedly, click the green Add Content<\/strong> button in the bottom left, and select the option for Publications and Blogs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Feedly provides ones you can click below, but chances are you have a particular source in mind. For most sites, Feedly can figure out what feeds are available if you enter the site\u2019s URL in the box, so for a WordPress blog like the one for Mia\u2019s class, I can choose from the Feed (which I want, the blog posts), or the comments (I may return for that later):<\/p>\n

Choose the source to add\u2026<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It will then ask you to choose a \u201ccollection\u201d to add it to<\/p>\n

Pick or create a collection to group this feed under<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A collection is like a folder or group, so I might make a new one called \u201cResearch\u201d. The next time I add a new feed, Research<\/strong> will be available as an option.<\/p>\n

And there it is, I am now subscribed to Mia\u2019s class blog:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For my Kean students, I will be expecting them to develop their own collection of feeds relative to their thesis topic or interests.<\/p>\n

There are a number of curation featured available, most noticeably \u201cBoards<\/strong>\u201d to which you can add individual items as you read using the star button. This is a curation method that you can use to pull things of interest from many different sources.<\/p>\n

Feel free to disagree with my time saving assertions, but I have years of experience as confirmation. But go back to trying to get all your key news from social media and tell me how that is more efficient.<\/p>\n

Oh, one more thing, how do you create those subscription files? Many ways.<\/p>\n