4 minutes

Every day, millions of internet users log onto websites like Facebook and YouTube. While on these sites, they spend hours upon hours surfing for content to entertain and feed their hunger for information. These sites display articles, videos and pictures that are hosted on other places across the internet. When websites compile content from external sources to their own location like this, they are known as curated sites.

CUES Learning Portal, Linkedin, and CMO.com are some examples of education-focused curated sites that make online education easier than ever. Here are five good reasons to use curated sites rather than other methods of online learning:

1. A good curated site is home to diverse content. Like a fully loaded salad, the best educational websites are filled with a variety of tasty tidbits. However, most websites host content from a small number of their own creators, leaving little room for diversity. With fewer authors, you get a smaller assortment of thoughts, ideas and opinions. In contrast, curated sites overcome this limitation by compiling information from multiple sources across the internet, so a wide range of authors can be presented in one location. For example, you could find Harvard Business Review articles written by Ph.D.s or TED Talks with unique opinions on popular issues. With these various voices, you will surely learn something different every time you visit.

2. All the best content is in one place, saving you time. Picture this: You boot up a search engine to look for some quick advice on an important subject. How many frustrating minutes did you spend seeking out quality information, only to be disappointed by sub-par content? Probably more than you should have. Fortunately, on curated sites, the work is already done for you; professional curators spend hours to find quality content—so you don’t have to. On good curated learning sites, every article is hand-picked to give you the best possible learning experience. Because you can trust that almost every piece is full of quality information, your time spent searching for educational materials is drastically shortened.

3. You can develop your interest in new topics and skills while using the site. Have you ever had the urge to learn something new, but you weren’t exactly sure what you might find interesting? Believe it or not, curated sites have exactly what you are looking for. With hundreds of exciting articles ripe for the picking, you are bound to find a fascinating, new topic to improve your business skills, deepen your understanding of your industry or expose you to a new recreational activity.

4. Content can be easily shared with friends, family, and co-workers. Although almost everyone has email and text at their fingertips, those communication methods aren’t always the most ideal way to share articles and videos. They may get lost in a flooded inbox or even accidently deleted. Thankfully, most curated sites have a sharing feature that allows you to share content via text and email, or even via external platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

5. These sites help you learn when you want to—and keep track of what you do. We’re all busy. Sometimes the only spare time you can spend on learning comes in short bursts, like in a waiting room or on the bus. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find content during these small windows, let alone consume it. However, curated sites will let you save content you want to read later. With the click of a button, you can send the content you’re interested in but can’t read right now to the curated site, allowing you to come back at any time. Additionally, some curated sites give you the ability to mark every article and video you complete, which provides an easy way to see your progress. You can return to this content anytime to review, refresh or relearn all the information from your previous learning excursions.

Visit a curated site and check it out. See what leveraging curated content can do for you or your staff as you look to develop your skills and grow your knowledge.

Isaiah Janisch was a 2018 summer intern with CUES, focusing on pathway development for CUES Learning Portal.