Reflection (Week 12)- FACETS

Find content
Assess content
Choose content
Explain why it is useful
Taylor content to a collection
Share the collection

The FACETS process is a list of steps that are recommended for people to follow when they are collecting informational resources and content to share with others.  Sites like Pinterest allows its users to present information on a topic by taking text, pictures, and videos; compiling them into a single board; and sharing that board with others.  The FACETS process aims to help people organize their information in a logical manner, rather than having a mixed up area with random pieces of text, pictures, and videos floating around with each other.

The FACETS process is a logical idea that most people online apply on their own.  Most of the Pinterest and Storify sites that I've come across in the past few weeks have a logical theme.  However, it seems that whether or not someone uses the FACETS process depends on their reason for posting.  There are people who are simply collectors of data, they pin anything that meets their fancy on a board or two and soon their data dump looks like a giant mess.  There is no theme besides the fact that the poster found each pin interesting for a few seconds.  These people don't need or use the FACETS process.  On the other hand, people who pin for fun, enjoyment, work, or all three end up using some extend of the FACETS process, whether consciously or unconsciously.  I have coworkers at my school who find worksheets, activities, and lessons on Pinterest to use in their own classrooms.  These people find tons of content but they do not pin everything.  They look through their findings and only pin what they plan to try in the future.  Most of my coworkers have the FAC part down.  The way they organize their data depends on how much they use Pinterest.  The coworkers that don't use Pinterest often and have a few pins will have a single board for their lesson ideas but those who use Pinterest often will have different boards for different subjects or types of lessons.  The one thing that I don't see a lot of on my coworkers boards are explanations of why they chose a particular piece.  The funny thing is, most of my coworkers are using the FACETS process, or perhaps the FACTS process, without realizing it because the process helps them to be organized.

The FACETS process has benefits and downfalls.  Some of the benefits of the FACETS process are: multiple resources can be assembled for easy access, relevant resources can be organized and found efficiently, people can compile resources together, people are encouraged to work together, people can find common ground and develop better relationships, new developments can travel faster through pinning, and sharing has the potential to help everyone.  Some of the downfalls of the FACETS process are: the time it takes to go through the FACETS process, finding the right technological tool, sifting through so much information, personal bias when posting, and collecting quantity over quality.  After considering all of the benefits and downfalls, the benefits greatly outweigh the downfalls.  Many of the downfalls would occur while using any process to collect and organize information.  Either way, having information organized and accessible is much better than having a giant mess in a cavernous data dump.