Social Bookmarking in the Classroom

Social bookmarking is yet another Web 2.0 technology to add to the 21st century educators’ toolbox. Like all Web 2.0 applications, social bookmarking sites promote collaboration, which is something that is in need of being focused on in K-12 education today.

The primary objective of these sites is for the collecting and sharing of valuable web resources and links. Users of this new tool can share their own web bookmarks with anyone else on the web. The real power of this functionality lies with the collectivism of sifting through the overwhelming amount of information located on the Internet and narrowing it down to useful sites. Social bookmarking also allows for descriptive keywords known as tags to be associated with each saved bookmark. Bookmarks can then be sorted and searched by these tags to create lists of niche sites useful for specific areas of study. Also, since these tagged bookmarks are stored on the web, any site that is saved to a social bookmarking site is accessible from any computer with an Internet connection.

The implications of this new tool for educators are plentiful.
First, teachers who teach the same subject can use social bookmarking sites to aid in curriculum planning. A geography teacher for example, can look up sites related to his or her course then bookmark and tag the best ones on sites like delicious.com. These bookmarks are now shared online with other teachers who are also looking for good material for their courses. And since these other teachers are also finding good sites and sharing them, a library of valuable web resources emerges. This library is also now searchable based on the tags provided. As more good resources get bookmarked and tagged, a social bookmarking site becomes a much better alternative for looking for information than simply running a Google search. It allows teachers to see the valuable resources that others are using and be able to take advantage of them as well as offer some bookmarks of their own. Overall, this process saves precious planning time for educators and ensures that students are being presented with the best of what’s on the web.

For students, the benefits are similar. Social bookmarking greatly enhances any type of educational research. It allows for collaboration amongst different schools across the country or even the world. Students can use the tool to work with their peers and other schools to create a collective intelligence. What results is a growing library of useful information for class projects or course discussions. Students currently rely on search engines such as Google to find information but this practice can result in millions of results, of which only a marginal amount are useful. Sorting out what is useful and what is not can take a great deal of time for one student. If many students are doing this and sharing their findings on social bookmarking sites, a new time saving search engine gets created. Students around the world can search the bookmarks that others have found to be useful to save time. Essentially, a collective group of student researchers are working together to sort through the abundance of information on the web.

Below are the sources for this information along with some helpful suggestions for implementation.

http://www.edutopia.org/so-del-icio-us
This is an edutopia article that explains the procedure for using social bookmarking tools. It also provides information on the significance these tools have in education.
The author shares a success story of a social bookmarking workshop given to school administrators that resulted in all of them using the tool at their schools.

http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/social-bookmarking
This is an article from McGraw Hill’s Teaching Today. It provides an overview of the educational benefits that social bookmarking offers. Also discussed are the reasons for using the tool as a substitute for Google searches. The author goes on to provide three main ways to incorporate the use of the tool in the classroom.

http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml
This is another article that both explains social bookmarking and offers suggestions for implementing it. It was published by Education World. Of special significance are the outside links provided that are useful for educators who wish to delve further into the tool and begin using it.

http://wiki.classroom20.com/Social+Bookmarks+Lesson+Plans
This is a wiki that provides suggested lesson plans for using social bookmarking. Specific objectives are provided, along with the materials needed, necessary steps for preparation, and guided activities.
http://wiki.classroom20.com/Social+Bookmarking
This is the main page for this wiki. It is also beneficial in that it provides another explanation of the benefits for using the tool.

http://www.alltipsandtricks.com/top-10-social-bookmarking-tools-for-educators/
This is a resource that, as the title of the link suggests, provides ten valuable social bookmarking sites for use in the classroom.

http://www.slideshare.net/zvezdan/social-bookmarking-in-education
This is the link to a slide show presentation about implementing social bookmarking in education given by Dr. Daniel Churchill from the University of Hong Kong.