Social bookmarking is the practice of saving bookmarks to a public web site and tagging them with keywords. The use of social bookmarking has only been around a few years, but people everywhere are discovering the implications that this Web 2.0 tool can have in their businesses, offices, and personal lives. One group that is becoming increasingly aware of the tool is educators. Classroom teachers, media coordinators, administrators, and students are uncovering the benefits that social bookmarking can have on their teaching and learning environments.
An educational journal, Educause, published an article in 2005 entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking." The article stated that social bookmarking "opens the door to new ways of organizing information and categorizing resources" (Educause, 2005). Under the category of "Significance," the article suggested that social bookmarking gives users the opportunity to express differing perspectives on information and resources through informal organizational structures. The article went on to say that social bookmarking simplifies the distribution of reference lists, bibliographies, papers, and other resources among peers or students (Educause, 2005).
One of the most popular social bookmarking tools today seems to be Delicious. With over 2 million users, Delicious has been called the "youtube" of links (Grosseck). Delicious allows teachers and students (or whoever) the power to collaborate and communicate with relative ease. Delicious bookmarking allows for "collective intelligence" (Grosseck). Educators can create dynamic learning communities and a social network wherein one can manage his or her information while also checking out what others are bookmarking. Some of the specific advantages for educational uses include: support for lectures; availability of educational materials; content management; professional development; the building of learning communities; and help with research and projects (Grosseck).
Learners can enjoy the benefits of social bookmarking by being able to access their bookmarks and favorite sites wherever they go, from any computer. In the past, one's "favorites" were available only on the computer that they were saved to. "The power of Delicious lies not only in making your bookmarks accessible to you, but in making everyone else's bookmarks available, also" (kayc28). For instance, if I were an algebra teacher, I could access Delicious, pull up all the sites that have been tagged "algebra" by others, and now I could potentially have a plethora of information at my fingertips about my subject area. Users of Delicious can subscribe to certain tags so that whenever someone tags a site with words that you have subscribed to, they get added to a list that you can go to whenever you have time to explore (kayc28).
For some users, there might be disadvantages associated with social bookmarking. For instance, some learners may not prefer an online connection. Delicious and its tagging system could offer an inconsistency of terms and/or problems with the use of its vocabulary and language for some users due to a lack of precision (Grosseck).
Personally, I think the advantages of social bookmarking outweigh the disadvantages. There is a very small learning curve and the organizational features and bookmark sharing capabilities makes it a very powerful tool for learning, sharing, and collaborating with other learners, students, and colleagues. I am excited about the future uses of Delicious for me personally.
References
Educause, (2005). 7 things you should know about social bookmarking. Retrieved November 7, 2009, at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf
Grosseck, G. ( ). The role of del.icio.us in education: Creating significant learning experiences. Retrieved November 7, 2009, from http://www.slideshare.net/ggrosseck/using-delicious-in-education
Kayc28. (2007, April 28). Delicious education links. Blog posted at wordpress.com: http://kayc28.wordpress.com/2007/04/28/delicious-education-links/
Shelly - Your explanation of uses for social bookmarking in education was very informative, and your description of this system brings up aspects for using social bookmarking within schools and classrooms that I had not considered.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Cathy, this is beautifully done! "Educators can create dynamic learning communities and a social network wherein one can manage his or her information while also checking out what others are bookmarking." Would love to know if and how you incorporate it into your classroom:)
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