Digital Curation: AAC Treasures

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A curator? Who, me? When a colleague first suggested that the online things we were sharing were part of the digital curation trend, I didn’t quite see it. Yes, I was always on the hunt for sites with quality AAC-related content. Yes, I sifted through those finds carefully to figure out which to keep, which to share, and how to organize it all so that I could actually find it when I needed it. But a curator?! Images of quiet basement rooms and dusty shelves came to mind…not quite the realm of my day-to-day experience.
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On closer inspection, though, I began to see what my colleague was saying. Because I teach so many AAC graduate classes fully online, I am always trying to figure out new ways to use technology to get student SLPs engaged and passionate about AAC. It’s been exciting exploring the new web tools over the years and, lately, I’ve been having a blast at flipping YouTube videos with AAC content for use in my classes and using them to build the clinical reasoning they will need as SLPs. (Thanks TED Ed!) Some days, I am just amazed at how many wonderful resources one can access without leaving home.
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That’s where digital curation has made such a difference in our work. A key element in having those resources accessible, is putting them together in a format that works. In our online classes, we have a specific portal with ways of doing that. But once students exit the class and graduate, those things are no longer available to them. That frustrated us because it’s AFTER classes end that young clinicians are most in need of a way to manage and grow their content-specific professional resources.
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We’ve used many digital curation tools over the past year. Some of them are tools that we continue to rely on heavily, and others, like Qwiki, which play a much more limited role. (Interestingly, though, we tend to use almost all of them in one way or another.) We haven’t always had the time to curate as heavily as we’d like, but we decided to go ahead and share anyway.
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This week, we plan to share some of our favorite AAC-related resources that have been compiled using various curation tools.
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To start us off, let’s take a look at what Pinterest has to offer. Pinterest has been growing in popularity, and what started off as a place for people to save information about fashion, cooking, decor, and the like has mushroomed into some much more than that.
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Pinterest Boards We Love

Pinterest, AAC Style

1. AAC  and also Augmentative Communication Boards
2. AAC Apps
3. Apraxia Boards
4. Positive Behavior Support
5. Sign Language & Manual Signs
6. Visual Schedule Boards

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Our Pinterest Boards
One of these days we’ll get around to combining all of our Pinterest boards but, for now, if you are interested, you can visit all of our boards at the URLs below.

• Carole: http://pinterest.com/aacandat/
• Robin: http://pinterest.com/communicationgh/

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We’re always looking for more AAC people to follow on Pinterest so please leave us a comment with your link. Happy Pinning!
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