BP4_2009102 Educational Uses for Social Bookmarking

BP4_2009102 Educational Uses for Social Bookmarking

Using Web 2.0 sites like Delicious for social bookmarking wasn't something I had thought much about before this class. I actually had a Delicious account for quite a while, but I used is rarely and only as a way to grab a few bookmarks at home that I might want to use at school.

After reading the Web 2.0 book by Solomon and Shrum, and the possibilities of the expansive use of the Internet by reading Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody, I can see where this might be used in the educational setting.

As a teacher, I can see how areas of study could be looked at ahead of time, and bookmarks created for a variety of topic areas. Once this list is created, these sites can be shared by the teacher to the students and this could focus areas of studies by the students rather than practicing search skills. Students certainly need the ability to search on their own, but in a focused study this would be a very big benefit.

This can also provide students that are working on group projects and opportunity have multiple people research ideas and sites and bring that information together. Solomon and Shrum (2007) took the idea further and stated both the positive and possible drawback in stating that students can share what they’ve found online, find those sites that are most relevant, but also that students will need to determine and learn how to find valuable sites.

Even for those schools where some of the Web 2.0 sites may be blocked, there may be options. The export link allows you to save a copy of your del.icio.us bookmarks in format that can be accessed by most web browsers (Muir 2005).

Even though students could use the Delicious site, after more research, it was also pointed out “…but because there is no filter, it's more appropriate for educators than students. Still, it's the best first-step for an educator wanting to see what social bookmarks are all about.” (Jackson, 2009).

As the use of such sites in education keeps developing, there will be sites that adapt these ideas for a more education friendly format. I can see sites developed that take a popular idea, YouTube for example, and creates and educationally oriented similar site, like TeacherTube.

References

Muir, D. (2005). Del.icio.us social bookmarking or tagging for teaching. Retrieved October 10, 2009 from http://personal.strath.ac.uk/d.d.muir/Delicious1_2.pdf

Solomon, G., & Shrum L. (2007). Web 2.0 tools new tools new schools. Washington D.C.:International Society for Technology in Education.

Jackson, L. (2009), Sites to see: Social bookmarking. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml.