BP4_20091008_Social_Bookmarking

There are many constraints that exists in today's educational society. One of the largest hurdles teachers face is reaching, as well as relating to their students. As a bridge, of sorts, technology has the potential to narrow the gap and provide for truly inspirational learning. As Bernie Poole (2009) states, "Technology, to be effective in helping children learn, should be integrated into lesson-planning with the objective of promoting what Montessori called spontaneous learning -- inherent, inevitable learning."

In the video above, Lee LeFever of Common Craft explains what social bookmarking is and how a popular Web 2.0 tool, del.icio.us, can be used to share and store bookmarks. Bookmarks are a "simple way to keep a list of your favorite websites handy for whenever you use your computer" (Carvin 2006). The restrictions of bookmarking are that the bookmark is only stored locally on the computer and can only be accessed when the user is on that particular machine. Another flaw of localized bookmarking is that it can only be shared if the owner copy and pastes that bookmark into an email. However, "del.icio.us allows you to share your bookmarks with the entire world, accessible from any online computer" (Carvin 2006). Thus allowing the information to be accessed from anywhere and shared with the entire web community. Del.icio.us also offers the ability to tag websites with keywords. Tagging "is a really powerful tool if you think about it, because it lets you find new websites that are considered most relevant and current by other del.icio.us users" (Carvin 2006). After watching the video and exploring del.icio.us, its doesn't take long to ponder the overwhelming uses of this tool in an educational setting.

Tagging is one of the greatest strengths that del.icio.us has to offer its users. In tagging, users place websites into their own method of cataloging and in doing so, is referred to as "folksonomy". With folksonomy "the community of users over time will develop a unique structure of keywords to define resources" (Edutopia, 2009) thus creating new connections of personalized meaning for individual websites. "Using a folksonomy-based tool for research lets you take advantage of the insights of other users to find information related to the topic you are researching, even in areas that aren’t obviously connected to the primary topic" (Edutopia, 2009). This becomes a best use scenario for educators and learners. For instance, a student may research a topic like the Declaration of Independence and would come across 1,327 tagged results. That same student however also come across "who created each bookmark and provide(s) access to that person’s other bookmarked resources, users can easily make social connections with other individuals interested in just about any topic"(Edutopia, 2009). Essentially the primary goal becomes not teaching students to remember where they found the information but rather "how to retrieve it using a framework created by and shared with peers and colleagues" (Edutopia, 2009).

As a final thought, Jennifer Verschoor provides the following example of how she integrates del.icio.us into her classroom. http://jenverschoor.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/using-delicious-in-my-classroom/

References:
Carvin, A. (2006, May 5). Tag - You’re Delicious!. Retrieved from
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2006/05/tag_youre_delicious.html

Edutopia. 7 things you should know about...Social Bookmarking. Retrieved October 8, 2009 from
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

LeFever, L. (2007, August 7). Social Bookmarking in Plain English [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU&feature=fvw

Poole, Bernie. (2009, January 23). A Philosophy Of Instructional Technology Use For Teaching and Learning. Education World, Retrieved from
http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/columnists/poole/poole017.shtml