The Internet contains a wealth of information--so much that no one person can access it all. It seems like almost every time that I look for information about a topic, I find what I am looking for and more. In the beginning, I began to bookmark pages on my browser. However, I got very frustrated because I couldn't access these links from all the computers that I used. I could never seem to remember that perfect site when I wanted it or the computer where I first found it. If I could remember which computer I was on, I would have to search through seemingly infinite lists of sites. Then I got better about organizing the sites in my bookmarks, but then my problem was that I couldn't remember where I put what.
This past summer at technology camp, I was introduced to social bookmarking tools such as Delicious. Now many of those problems that I had are solved. I can access my links from any computer. I can tag my entries so that I can find them more easily later.
This week, though, during my research of educational uses for social bookmarking, I have found out even more. I had never thought through the ways that I could use my social bookmarking account. Up until now, I have just scratched the surface of this powerful tool. Here are some ways that educators can use this tool.
Collaboration
1. Teacher to Teacher
Fryer (2007) states, "Grade-level teacher teams can collaboratively find and share resources." I have bookmarked things with people in mind, but it never occurred to me to collaborate with others on my grade level or even in my school using Delicious or any other bookmarking tool. My challenge here would be to "encourage" other teachers in my building to sign up and use a tool such as Delicious. We have varying levels of competency in using technology as well as the desire to do so.
2. Professor (Teacher) to Student
Christine Greenhow (2009) states, "Teachers can collectively assemble, annotate, recommend, and share scholarly resources, such as books, journal articles, websites, and contacts." I can remember my professors placing information in a file in the library for us to access to provide extra information about whatever we were studying. Using a tool such as Delicious would be much more efficient.
3. Library Media Specialist to Teacher (or student)
According to Baumbach (2009), on Delicious, you can "create a tag for each subject area, each teacher or each project and then generate a URL that will show only the links with that specific tag." Therefore, finding resources for specific teachers or topics would become much more efficient.
4. Student to Teacher (Professor)
Students can show their teacher where they read something online. Using Diigo, the students can bookmark it, share it with their teacher, and highlight the parts they think are important. Then the teacher can go back and assess their choices. In Hargardon's (2007) article, Dave Erhart states, "Diigo allows you to differentiate instructions starting from a basic level, where students must find a main topic or vocabulary words by highlighting and making comments to more sophisticated skills, in which the might be asked to highlight and discuss bias in an editorial."
5. Reasearchers at all levels
Cannata (2009) states that researchers at all levels, including students and faculty, can quickly set up a social bookmarking page for their research studies. Baumbach (2009) stated that you can "contact others who have similar interests to collaborate on ideas, projects, papers, publications, and/or presentations."
Baumbach, D. (2009). Your new BFF. Florida Media Quarterly, 34(2), 9-13.
Cannata, C. (2009). Folksonomy, tagging and taxonomy for effective learning: Perspectives of learning 2.0 in the XXI century. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 4(2), 26-32. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=42309028&site=ehost-live
Fryer. W. (2007). Social bookmarks 101. TechEdge, 27(1), 22-23. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=27680230&site=ehost-live
Greenhow, C. (2009). Tapping the wealth of social networks for professional development. Learning & leading with technology, 36(8), 10-11. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ842796&site=ehost-live
Hargardon, S. (2007). A little help from my friends: Classroom 2.0 educators share their experiences. School Library Journal, 53(10), 44-48. Retrieved November 8, 2009 from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ786410&site=ehost-live
Great job, Tia.
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