Social bookmarking is a great web 2.0 tool that allows users to access and save bookmarks to the web and access saved bookmarks from any internet connected computer. With social bookmarking users can store, tag, share and search for links to online subject matter. You can make social connections with other individuals interested in just about any topic (Lomas, 2005).
Tagging bookmarks is what makes social bookmarking effective. By tagging bookmarks users can narrow down a search from a large list of bookmarks. When users need to look for something specific, a search can be performed using the tag terms or keywords. Users who create these labels or key terms to define resources are known as “Folksonomy”. Now when a user begins a search using a key label/tag to get the collected archive, it will be based on users who previously tagged those resources with that same label (Department of Education, 2009).
Social bookmarking is a great educational tool for students and educators. Educators can use social bookmarking to gather information abut a topic that will be taught and tag the resources with the necessary labels (The McGraw-Hill Companies, n.d.). Students can use social bookmarking to help create and share reference lists, bibliographies, papers, and other resources for a specific topic (Lomas, 2005). Teachers can set up an account for each class with a shared user name and password (Department of Education, 2009). In this account, resources can be tagged with labels for the current topic in class. Students can add to the list and share their findings with other classmates to learn more about that specific topic. Social bookmarking in the classroom can open the door to keeping up to date with current events and historical events. Students can subscribe, on some social bookmarking sites, to an RSS feed to get the most current news on a specific subject.
Social bookmarking is user-friendly therefore educators are more likely to take advantage of this web 2.0 tool and use it in the classroom or for personal use. It takes only a few minutes to sign up with an e-mail address and password. Once signed up, users can export current bookmarks from a personal computer and import them into the social bookmarking site. Now the social bookmarking journey begins (The McGraw-Hill Companies, n.d.).
References:
Department of Education. (2009). Social bookmarking. Retrieved November 07, 2009, from http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/socialbookmarking/index.htm
Lomas, C. (2005). 7 things you should know about social bookmarking. EDUCAUSE Learning Initiatives. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7049.pdf
The McGraw-Hill Companies. (n.d.). Teaching today | how-to articles | social bookmarking. Retrieved November 07, 2009, from http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/social-bookmarking
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Thanks for the great thoughts and helpful sources!
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