Social bookmarking is a dream come true for an extroverted, education junky like myself. It's all about organizing and sharing electronic sources with fellow educators, parents, and students. What social bookmarking does for the research process is beautiful! As I'm searching a topic online, I simply click a button on my browser to save the URL of any source I want to remember. I file this URL address in a neat stack accessible to me anytime on any computer since my social bookmark is not restricted to my hard-drive.
If I am working on a project with a colleague, I can email her my stack, or list of valuable sites. She can look over my sources before we meet, either online or in person, to complete our project. We can even look at stacks by others who have a similar interest and add what we like. No longer do we have to travel aimlessly on the internet using only a search engine.
And let's not forget how this tool can help students. If I assign research on a particular topic and don't want students to spend four days searching for sources and evaluating their reliability, I can pre-select sites for them. Using my social bookmarking stack, students can still make choices on what to read. They just have a more narrowed focus. They can spend more time reading and learning about the topic.
Of course, my students need to use this tool as well. Teaching organizational skills sets up my students for success. Social bookmarking also helps with collaboration. This tool has me doing cartwheels in my language arts classroom. I'm so excited about the power it gives both my students and me to explore, organize, and share with one another.
Are you a social bookmarking newbie? So am I. Don't be afraid. It's easier to master than you think. Check out this video for a quick and easy explanation by Common Craft.
Social Bookmarking
Also take a look at the stack I recently created titled digital citizenship. I plan to share it with students next year.
http://bit.ly/KdRKUJ
Great explanation of social bookmarking! I like your research application of students finding your stack and using that, and I agree that students creating their own stacks for a project is important so that they learn how to critique the value of a site and how to use the information it provides. I have been amazed through this course at all that I have missed out on to make life easier. I think I used to think I was cheating by looking up lesson plans on the internet, but now, I'm realizing that's why their there and now there are ways to organize my findings. Glad we've both gained something!
ReplyDelete