Digital curation is probably 60% of my working life. I spend a lot of time combing the web and social media for helpful resources for educators. I’ve used a combination of several curation tools over the years, including Pocket and Flipboard, and still use them. However, I may have a new favorite in Wakelet.
Pocket ticked a lot of the boxes for me when it came to curation:
- One place to store everything
- Accessible on any device and in any web browser, Twitter, Flipboard and other places from which I gather info
- No more than 2 steps to save
- Taggable
- Searchable
- Maintains the source information (especially if obtained on Twitter)
- Free
- Unlimited Storage
One of the problems I had been having with Pocket was that it saved Tweets differently depending on the device I was using, sometimes not allowing them to tag them or showing the original tweet with author, making it difficult for me to search for them later. So, when I kept seeing educators excited about Wakelet, I decided to put it through the paces to decide if I wanted to make a switch.
One place to store everything: Yes, but the advantage of Wakelet is that you can create collections to save to, immediately categorizing the links you save.
Accessible on any device and in any browser: As far as I can see, Wakelet meets this criteria. I use it on my phone with the installed app, within Twitter (on phone or on laptop), and as an extension in my Chrome browser. Extensions and apps can be found here.
No more than two steps to save: Once you install the extension on your laptop and the app on your phone, this is true.
Taggable: As far as I can tell, this is not a feature in Wakelet. However, you are technically “tagging” your resources by sorting them into categorized collections when you add them.
Searchable: I’m not sure on this one. Since I just started, I don’t have a lot of resources on there yet. I can search my Collections, but it looks like the search is looking only for Collection titles.
Maintains the Source Information for Twitter: Yes!
Free: Yep!
Unlimited Storage: As far as I can tell, yes.
Some features that you will find in Wakelet that many other curation tools do not have are:
Sharing: You can make your collections private to you or shareable (Flipboard also has this option, but Pocket does not). Want to make a collection of resources for your students to use in a lesson or project? This is one great way to do it.
Collaboration: Students, teachers, anyone you invite, can add to Wakelet collections if you like. See this page for more information.
Integration with Other Tools: In the screenshot below you can see some of the tools that integrate with Wakelet, making it super easy to share your collections.
Layout Options: You can change the layouts of your collections so they look more visually appealing. One of the options is “Moodboard”, which looks similar to Pinterest.
To test out the sharing option, I’m going to give you this link to my collection of other features and ways to use Wakelet with your students. I think you’ll find it to be a very helpful tool if you give it a try!
