One Scoop or Two?

Building your own "sundae" of information is as delicious as a double scoop of chocolate ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top! Scoop.It is the banana split of bookmarking when browsing the web because you get to choose and garnish an information "sundae" with content you find deliciously interesting.  You can share your scoops of information with a community of readers on various social media, and on Scoop.It.

Here’s how you scoop your way to a delicious "sundae" of information! 

1.) Pick a title for your topic, e.g., “Tech Tools To Improve Parent Communication”

2.) Enter a brief, but engaging description of the type of content your scoop will contain e.g.,   

     Connecting with parents in a snap using web 2.0 tools!  

3.) Identify the language the content will be in: English

4.) Enter keywords to describe your topic: parent communication, parent contact, etc.

5.) Upload an icon to represent your scoop if you’d like.

Then, watch the magic happen! Scoop.it scans the web to scoop up any relevant content related to your topic. Like an ice cream bar with unlimited toppings, Scoop.it presents you with content choices to add to your information sundae. You decide to add or discard the content depending on its relevancy and interest.  You can also decide on sources to locate your content. Adding a Scoop.it bookmarklet to your browser also makes it easy to scoop up content whenever you're browsing and come across content worth adding.

Once you have scooped up content for your information sundae, you can share your scoops on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wordpress and Tumblr, join a community of scoopers, follow their scoops or be followed.  Scoop.It is still in the beta stage, so I hope they will sweeten up to the idea of adding Blogger to their sharing options. However, you can add a sweet widget of your scoops to your website or blog! 

Students, teachers and parents are in for a real treat with Scoop.It because it’s a delicious way to organize content and taste each scoop of information one at a time to meet so many instructional purposes and needs.  


Different reasons for creating your own Scoop.Its:

• Disseminates information such as important articles, videos, links, and other content to parents, colleagues, and students
• Organizes resources for group projects for struggling students to save time and help students see various content that reveals a topic's focus or theme.
• Facilitates students' research efforts for projects. As they research a topic, students can scoop their sources and submit their scoop.it page to the teacher as their lists of works cited. 
• Supports reading instruction. Students can work individually, in pairs or small groups reading content the teacher has pre-selected and saved on Scoop.it. Students can analyze the differences in the text structure of each selection featured in the scoop.it page; they can set a purpose for reading each selection; identify key or difficult vocabulary in each selection; summarize each selection, and find connections among all of the selections on the Scoop.It page.  

Here’s a double scoop I created. I will be adding the Scoop.It widget to my blog, so you can always see new content I’ve scooped up, or you can get a taste on my Twitter page, Facebook, or by following my scoops on Scoop.It itself.