BP4_2009102_Social_Bookmarking

Bookmarking websites has been around for quite a while. The problem with bookmarking is you have to have your computer. Well, until services such as Apple's mac.com allowed you to sync your bookmarks. But maybe you do not want to register the computer you are using to the service, for instance a public terminal, then you could use your iPhone... if you have one. Along comes the service to store your bookmarks online. Hey wait a minute, since they are now online why not share your bookmarks with your family and friends, heck why not share them with the world. One thing is I may not care what your bookmarks are and you may not care about mine, but we do not have to look. A nice thing is if I like one thing you found on the internet and bookmarked, I may like more. From the point of view of an educator, I can publish a list of links to the websites I use to do my job effectively for colleagues to use as well. I can also publish a list of links that my students may find can come in handy when they are doing their research.

EducationWorld's Sites to See article on Social Bookmarking also notes that these sites allow you to tag your bookmarks with meta information that is then searchable. If you have a website address that could be in multiple categories you can tag it as such, a trick not possible in your computers bookmarks folders. An interesting idea from Educause's 7 Things you should know about social bookmarking is "It may become less important to know and remember where information was found and more important to know how to retrieve it using a framework created by and shared with peers and colleagues." One issue stemming from this is that someone needs to verify the sites authenticity, validity and reliability. A serious issue we face with anyone being able to publish anything on the web is the accuracy of the information. Of course if it is the teacher that is using the social bookmarking site to share resources with their students as CR 2.0 suggests “Lets students choose from a variety of acceptable links, making for productive research that still allows for variability.”

Resources

Educause Learning Initiative (2005, May) 7 Things you should know about social bookmarking. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

Classroom 2.0 (n.d.) Social Bookmarking Retrieved from http://wiki.classroom20.com/Social+Bookmarking

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