Thing 4: Storify

I'm not keeping up with my cpd23 work at the moment, as I've too much to do at work, and also had to pay an unexpected visit to my mum, who wasn't feeling too good (she's 90). However, I spotted something I haven't tried out yet as part of Thing 4, so I spent a little recreational time this morning trying it out and working out whether I might use it.
This is Storify which makes it easy to pull together postings from various social media and add some headings and text. I was a bit disappointed that you couldn't edit the layout more, but now looking at other people's stories (some just one tweet long!) I realise I was thinking too much about "information" and not enough about "story". Still, here's my first attempt, on Information Overload. I've embedded it in slideshow format as that seemed a bit more manageable, this is the actual link: http://storify.com/sheilayoshikawa/information-overload.

I mostly thought about how I might use this in teaching. Even though my story is too much of a "resource" I think it it still could be a valid way to pull together some opinions and information, as a bundle of material to stimulate discussion in a class. I like the visual element.
I think it would be even better as something to use with students, getting them to tell their own stories with Storify about (for example) information overload. We have a first year class where sometimes we get students to find Flickr images to do with "research" as a way of getting into conversation, and using Storify might be an even better way to get people to reflect on what a particular concept meant to them. You could also pick a controversial event and pull together a story which illustrated the different ways in which people dealt with it, and the information literacy implications. The only issue (as with all these tools) is that you are telling students to sign up to something, i.e. give up some of their personal data to a 3rd party, which always gives ethical pause, but this application doesn't seem too intrusive.
I had some minor gripes, apart from the restrictive layout e.g. it seemed like you couldn't check what the links on a Twitter post were without actually leaping out to Twitter (which I wanted todo before I added a tweet).