BP8_20091011_Response_To_Peer_Blog_Post

Sunday, October 11, 2009

BP4: Social bookmarking

Though I had not been introduced to social bookmarking tool before this course, I quickly saw its tremendous value. In the educational setting, professional development and best practices sites can be accumulated for and by all faculty members. Teachers can encourage students to find new sources of information related to current coursework topics and compile them on a single bookmark page to share with other students. Solomon and Schrum (2009) point to the relevance of social bookmarking in the classroom. As students do not typically have personally dedicated computers, social bookmarking sites provide access to stored URLs for retrieval from any computer, at school or elsewhere.

O'Neal (2007) points to the old struggles of transferring a URL from computer to computer (one location to another), and the inconvenience it can cause. He also touts the tagging system of the del.icio.us website, that allows one to utilize the scrutiny and assessment of other users to help avoid endless searches for the most useful website on a given topic. Why spend hours mulling through seemingly infinite Google searches when your delicious page informs that 3 sites are 100 times more popular than all other sites combined? This can be a tremendous time saver.

Gordan-Murnane (2006) emphasizes the folksonomy (or taxonomy) of social bookmarking and its relevance to educational uses. The organization of social bookmarks relies solely on the users and the tags they apply to each site bookmarked. As the network of bookmarks grows, tags establish "connections" between related websites, simply by having similar tags. No thorough study or sorting is required. It simply happens as a result of the growth of the network. Of particular note in her article are sites developed to assist those in academic fields: CiteULikeCannotea (htttp://www.cannotea.org/). Both are specifically aimed at academics to share,store, and organize academic papers they are presently reading.

Even while still teaching in a math role in my current position, I anticipate that I can introduce a use for social bookmarking within my faculty. I would certainly expect those that are not too shy of technology to embrace its use in their coursework, particularly those related to research.
(http://www.citeulike.org/) and

References

Gordon-Murnane, L. (2006). Social bookmarking, folksonomies, and web2.0 tools. Searcher
14(6), 26-38. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com

O'Neal, C. (2007, April 11). Re: So delicious: a must-use bookmarking tool. Message posted to
http://www.edutopia.org/so-del-icio-us

Solomon, G., and Schrum, L. (2009). Web2.0: new tools, new schools. International Society for
Technology in Education.

1 comments:

Danni Brayer said...

Before this course, I had 'messed with' Stumbled Upon, a plug-in for Firefox, but it became so annoying that I had to uninstall it. It kept popping up at unwanted times and I couldn't hover over an item on the page with out something popping up and wanting to know if I wanted to bookmark it. I had heard of and read about Delicious, but after my experience with Stumbled Upon, I did not venture into trying it.

I have discovered one dislike about Delicious, so far. When I close Firefox I save my tabs, so I do not have to open all of them again the next time I open Firefox. However, after I installed the Delicious plug-in, I was no longer given that option, which honestly, made me angry. The plug-in should not have that much control over my browser. Don't you agree? Maybe I'm picky, but I kind of feel like it, Delicious, is 'meddling' in my 'business' just a bit.

I'm struggling with the 'tagging.' Perhaps I'm a perfectionist, but what if you start tagging with a certain word and later you decide you don't like it. How do you go back and fix it?

Yet, I wholeheartedly agree with you concerning student use.

"As students do not typically have personally dedicated computers, social bookmarking sites provide access to stored URLs for retrieval from any computer, at school or elsewhere."

This is so true in my school. Students also shift across OS platforms (MAC to PC). It will be best for them to learn about social bookmarking, so they can access them from any computer and even at home.

October 11, 2009 10:17 PM