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edshelf: it's a directory, it's a review portal, it's a community, it's a curation tool . . .
Look, up in the cloud! It’s a directory. It’s a review portal. It’s a community. It’s a launchpad. It’s a curation tool. It’s a playlist creator. It’s an easy source of icons and QR codes.
I’ve been using edshelf for some time now and it’s kinda become one of my superheroes for curating apps and tools.
The edshelf platform functions as a kind of shopping mall for websites, mobile apps, and desktop programs. All items are rated & reviewed by parents & educators, for parents & educators.
I’ve used it to present and archive professional development sessions, to suggest a range of tool options for a variety of class projects, as a launchpad widget on full pages of my LibGuides, and as a menu to use and share real-time with participants during conference sessions.
Creating a collection is a simple as clicking on the icons that appear after you filter by keyword, price, age, platform or category. If you do not see a tool or site after searching the existing the directory, you may add a tool directly into edshelf. A temporary profile is created by the team, who moderates additions and fills in the rest of the profile after a little time.
If you do not want to create a collection yourself, you may search, use, link to, or embed collections created by other members of the community.
Collections may be printed with QR codes or URLs. They may be shared as grids, lists or in compact form. Collections are embeddable in those three formats too and easily previewed and shared via email or on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Pinterest.
In the default view, clicking on an icon leads you to an entry’s full review including: videos; detailed descriptions; a list of community members using it and the community collections in which the the tool is included; platforms; recommended ages; related tools; price, if there is one; and ratings for learning curve, pedagogical effectiveness, and student engagement.
The Launchpad view, takes you directly to the site or app (though this view is not yet embeddable).
I recently suggested Michelle Luhtala use edshelf and contact co-founder Mike Lee for her best apps edweb webinar. She was hooked too.
Michelle used it to curate her top app lists and referred to the reviews in the session. She also used the list view to create her slides, saving lots of time grabbing the pre-created QR codes and already curated icons.
edshelf is free and promises:
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- We will NEVER alter our recommendations based on payments from merchants.
- We will NEVER alter our search results based on payments from merchants.
- We will NEVER sell your contact information to merchants.
- All sponsored links and messages will be clearly marked.
Mike is very open to ideas for improvement for upcoming versions.
About Joyce Valenza
Joyce is an Assistant Professor of Teaching at Rutgers University School of Information and Communication, a technology writer, speaker, blogger and learner. Follow her on Twitter: @joycevalenza
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