Week 4 Synthesis: Curating Through MCBS

As I worked on developing my digital story throughout this month, I found myself referring back to the MCBS Symbaloo several times to access resources to create a better digital story. After this experience, I can see why it's important and extremely helpful as a media creator to curate content in order to create better quality and professional projects whether it's videos, storyboards, presentations, graphics and much more.

The assets I curated this month are definitely worth keeping as well as continuing the habit of curating for future classes and projects. It's also helpful as I gain clients and provide them recommendations on resources we can use to execute their projects affordably but with quality.

A new habit I developed is using a tool like Symbaloo. It's a neat alternative to bookmarking to organize resources you want to come back to later. I typically create bookmark folders and and curate assets within those folders; but if for whatever reason I don't have that same computer or don't export/import browser bookmarks, then I can't access them when I need them. Symbaloo is online and I can access them from anywhere in addition to being able to share Symbaloo with clients or team members/employees.

Curating resources definitely enriched my experience this month. Although, in the past, I was constantly reading and bookmarking resources, I had lost touch with that habit in the last 2 years working at my job. It was helpful to see what resources are available and instead of using bookmarking, using Symbaloo. For example, two years ago, I remember wondering how to create flip books affordably vs having a designer do it. Now, there are resources like SimpleBook. Storify was another resource I found interesting to find as well and a great asset for client campaigns and a variety of other media projects. 

Curating quality vs. quantity is a better approach as believed by Romney Whitehead and the author of "Digital Media Assets Not All Equal," for a number of reasons including saving on costs for storage, the ability to give valuable assets the special treatment they deserve, and being able to provide assets that are completely relevant to the existing specific need. It's about curating content that will make people want to go back to those assets vs. having hundreds that will be stored away and never looked at or used.  Quality assets will create something beautiful and have more meaning in addition to saving time and money in production.