BP5_2009121_Social Bookmarking

In my research on social bookmarking, I found sites that simply discuss what social bookmarking is rather than why use them in education. I suppose it may be up to me to say why social bookmarking benefits education and/or educators. Educators come across many different resources both in curriculum given to them by their respective schools, and in individual searches for lesson plan ideas. When good resources or websites are found, there is a desire to share the information with other educators and/or with students. “Teachers can use social bookmarking to share links to websites and to find out what websites other teachers are using”(Schmid, 2008). The easiest ways to create a database of sorts for these websites/resources is to bookmark them. Social bookmarking sites create this database on the web rather than on a personal computer, which allows the user to create tags (keywords) for easy referencing of these sites.

“A teacher could set up an account for each class, tag resources and make the URL available to the class. As the work is web-based it can be modified and updated from any Internet connected computer. Likewise students can access the resources from any internet connected computer” (Department of Education, 2009). Sites like delicious.com has no filters and allows for bookmarking of any site under any tag and is a Yahoo company. It is easy to sign up for especially if one already has a Yahoo account. “A collaborative account could be created, the username and password shared by a class or group of students who could then tag and share resources” (Department of Education, 2009).

“Social bookmarking simplifies the distribution of reference lists, bibliographies, papers, and other resources among peers or students” (Educause Learning Initiative, 2005). This makes it easier for students seeking information on similar topics to be able to look up sources of information under tags or keywords. Other users can do research faster because sites have been bookmarked.

References

Department of Education. (2009). Resourcing the Curriculum. Retrieved December 18, 2009, from Department of Education: http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/socialbookmarking/index.htm

Educause Learning Initiative. (2005, May). 7 Things you should know about social bookmarking. Retrieved December 18, 2009, from Educause Learning Initiative: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

Schmid, H. (2008, January 15). How do I use social bookmarking in education? Retrieved December 18, 2009, from ICT-in-Education Online Community: http://cms.unescobkk.org/forum/education/ict/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=187