Social Bookmarking

Got a great lesson on the value of social bookmarking recently and can really see its applications to a classroom, especially a research-based one. Getting started was easy. I chose to use Delicious as my social bookmarking tool and after filling out an easy one page registration and going through a short tutorial the site offers I was set. I use the Firefox web browser and an easy to install plugin produced a new set of buttons on my browser's toolbar which allow me to bookmark and access those bookmarks with one click. To test it out I went to several sites I consult and easily saved them to Delicious. One of the most valuable aspects of social bookmarking is the tagging practice that goes along with it. When you bookmark a site, Delicious produces a template that allows you to not only include notes on the site you're saving, but also asks that you "tag" the site with terms you think naturally describe the site. They even offer some suggestions that can take any guesswork out of it. My bookmarks can be viewed at http://delicious.com/shawnthornton .

I think there are some very valuable applications for social bookmarking in the classroom that fulfill the standards set forth by NETS-S. Social bookmarking very naturally allows students to demonstrate communication and collaboration (NETS-S 2) as well as research and information fluency (NETS-S 3) while practicing digital citizenship (NETS-S 5). I can really see myself utilizing social bookmarking in research assignments, but also as a means of generating a resource that could supplement classroom resources (text, handouts, etc.). I see this technology as a great addition to a growing list of "gadgets" that may soon be as commonplace as text and note books in our classrooms.