Collecting content

Somehow, I got tagged in a response from Wakelet.  I was confused a bit since I’d never heard about it but digging back, I see that I was originally tagged by Sue Bruyns. I was honoured to be included in the list with so many fabulous TVDSB educators.  It was appropriate as I was in a London hotel at the time enjoying a bit of a getaway for the Thanksgiving weekend!

Has anyone used @wakelet to manage Tweets? @dougpete @DavidFifeP @dcarruthersedu @DawnTelfer @tvdsbmatthews @Kylede08 @RamonaMeharg @HSolway @Mr_H_Teacher . It was mentioned during the #Prinleaderchat tonight

— Sue Bruyns (@sbruyns) October 8, 2018

There was my call to action.

I decided to give it a shot.  My conclusion?  It might just well be the solution for those who are missing Storify.  But, don’t stop there.

It’s available via the web or applications for Android and iOS or browser extension.  I just kicked the tires over the web.

It was easy enough to create an account; it did need access to my Twitter feed which I found a bit curious but I suppose if I wanted to create a resource with private stuff or easily send out a Twitter notification to the “wake”.

The magic appears here when you indicate that you want to create a new collection.

For my first run through, I decided to create a collection of posts from the @ecooorg account on Twitter.  Note that there are a number of different choices for sources.

The search box was straight forward.  I could select individual Twitter messages but I’m of the philosophy of the more, the merrier.

In the spirit of the Internet just providing a torrent of information, I selected all 50.

I added a header and a background from their stock collection.  There is an option to use custom graphics for these if you’re looking for a particular branding.

The default on your collection is private – I decided to make this public.

Then, it’s just a matter of saving it and deciding to share or embed.

Here are your share options…

The link to the wake is here.  I had a number of display options available.  I chose Grid view.

The result?

There are also options to add collaborators and to notify people in the message if you’re so inclined.

Everything seemed to work smoothly for me.

This might well be the tool that you’re looking for for this sort of purpose.

But I think you could go way beyond this, if you were so inclined.  In particular, the Wakelet extension could open a bunch of other alternatives.  Instead of thinking of a Wake as a one-time event, I’m thinking it could be more like a place to store articles, story, media, Flipgrids, etc.  I’d store them based upon a theme.  So, I might have one to collect Python resources on an ongoing basis, for example.

The nice thing about utilities like this is that they have so many possibilities.

What ways do you see yourself using a utility like this?