Why curate?

So for this Thing (of reinforcing connections by reading other 23 Things participants’ blogs and sharing a link to a particularly good post on my blog), I was spoilt for options.

I decided initially to link to Nicole’s blog, Digital Exploration,to her post ‘GoogleFEST@ULearn‘, because of her particularly clever use of visuals in her articulately written text – with ideas to think about and links to read more widely.

E.g. Nicole’s positive comment and visual re the ULearn conference: “Overloaded and then sinking to the bottom of the pool.”

She has great examples throughout her blogs on how a picture can paint a thousand words.

BUT, then I read Helen’s post, ‘This man reads a book with no pictures‘ with its brilliant video link – in her blog Catching the Surf. Hmmm, no pictures in this book.

So, are pictures invaluable in painting a thousand words – or superfluous and unnecessary?

Onto Suzanne’s post on ‘Selective Storytelling‘ in Blog Novice 1, where she writes, “The Web 2.0 allows us to tell our stories in new ways, but it doesn’t change the principles of storytelling. Our stories still need to be interesting and relevant or our audience stops listening. The stories are still told with a purpose in mind, be it entertainment, information or challenge – or a mix.”

So the essence really is great storytelling in a blog, a thesis or a novel – with or without pictures.

Thanks bloggers for such a feast of interesting posts.