Photograph originally uploaded by Greg Easton Photography
Perhaps like most everyone else who has used the internet I have experienced two fundamental truths; one, that you can find just about the perfect whatever it is you are looking for on the internet and two, once you leave the website that contains it you'll never be able to find it again. Ever. Even with Google and, if necessary, a good fortune teller with a crystal ball. Of course I should bookmark the site which is made both fast and easy as all browsers have this capability built into them and in two mouse clicks I could save myself both time and grief. Well this old solution was better than nothing, however I travel from work and back and use different computers and bookmarks or favourites do not travel through the air with the greatest of ease...time for a new solution... enter social bookmarking! Now not only are my bookmarks portable, I can share them and find people with similar interests or vocations who may also have other bookmarks that will be valuable to me as mine may be to others.
Reflections on the process of learning about the tool
I can sum up what I knew about social bookmarking in one word...nada! I must admit to not even having heard of social bookmarking. Bookmarking, yes, but social bookmarking? Nope!
So I decided to sign-up for a delicious account and get into the fray...a very simple process and now that I seem to be signing up for everything I have my user name and password figured out already. Then as I started using delicious I got sidetracked into the following link after link of interesting, but not course-related websites...much like a maze and at some point I realized that I had gone down a particular path too long and it was time to re-establish my purpose and get my bearings back.
Something on delicious just didn't feel right for me...I didn't add the menu bar buttons while signing up and found it difficult to try and put them on afterward...so I thought that I'd explore a different site...in her article Using Social Bookmarking to Organize the Web Kirstin Fontichiaro (2008) named delicious and Furl.net as the two best-known websites for social bookmarking so I thought I would try Furl...I have not discovered what has happened to Furl, but it appears to have been taken over by Diigo... by default I arrived at Diigo and I am very happy that I have.
From the first welcome screen I very much like the feel of Diigo...this screen included a short video demonstrating the uses of Diigo and how easy it is to use. I signed up for an account and then downloaded the Diigo toolbar...I didn't want to repeat my button mistake like with Delicious! I am looking to build a playhouse for my children so to explore making some bookmarks I decided to check out some of those sights and add them to my Diigo account.
The process was very simple as shown in the demonstration...I just found a site I was interested in and clicked on the bookmark button on the toolbar and presto up pops a dialogue box which already had the URL and a title for the website and gave me options to add tags and a description and even gave me suggestions for tags that I had used earlier. When I revisited my site I was able to make a list called playhouse plans and voila I am organized and feel that I'll be able to find the sites of interest with no difficulty.
I also checked out the ability of highlighting and adding sticky notes to the web pages that I saved. Both worked flawlessly and I am excited to add them to my research capabilities! I have accessed my account from school and home and this truly is a vast improvement over the old favourites and bookmarks included with internet explorer...I hope to make contacts on the site to share information and use this social aspect of these sites work for me as well...
Discussion of the tool in terms of my own personal learning.
I think my own learning will be enhanced as I have better control over saving my own bookmarks, but also because with a quick search I can find other sites that have been saved by people who have similar interests to me. Likewise I will waste less time in trying to find sites of interest. The advantage that social bookmarking has here for me personally is that the tags that I added can be used instantly to sort all of my saved websites unlike the old folder in a folder in a folder method that I employed using the browser's where I might forget where I put a particular bookmark that applied to more than one area.
I also wonder if these bookmarking sites will slow ndown the number of websites being created...I teach grade 9 Math and have found many useful sites either for blackline masters or videos explaining a particular content area...because they are so easy to find I didn't have to create and post new but similar if not the same resources this perhaps could help slow the need for new websites because the existing ones are more readily found using this bookmarking system. Similarly I am not the only person who is looking for playhouse plans...infact when I did a community -wide search I found 58 tags for playhouse...some were for theatrical playhouses, but I did find some good sites. It is always good to hae a selection available before making a choice and certainly the selection I found was adequate to give me some great ideas.
Discussion of the tool in terms of teaching and learning.
All of the savings of time and energy and the great selection of sites available from my personal learning apply above apply to teaching and learning. Having said that I read an article that got me thinking about how we are going to deal with academic integrity. David Jakes(2009) has written an article called Cheater or Collaborator in which he sets up a scenario where a student goes to other students sites and gets their bookmarks and uses these sites for information... many might consider this cheating, however it is using social bookmarking for exactly what it is for...finding appropriate sites and sharing them...as teachers would we view this differently if the student took the bookmarks from an anonymous member of Diigo? What would make it different if we would treat them differently? I see this a shift from independent research to collaborative research, but the final paper or assignment would still be the students own work (I'd hope!)
The uses of social bookmarking in the class are vast...it supports the model of teachers as learners and learners as teachers as each individual can add to the growing list of resources available to the entire learning community.
As a network administrator in my school district I see social networking as creating a vast network of the whole web as it was envisioned to be since its conception...as an example some students are amazed that they can log on to any computer in the school and find their work at that computer and then next class use a different computer and still all their work is resident (apparently) on the new computer. Likewise I can log onto any computer that has web access and now find the bookmarks that I made at home or at school or anywhere...this is a truly powerful application of the web and this power can be demonstrated to students as they can find good quality sites in just a couple of clicks of the mouse...then there will be two new truths to finding anything on the web; one, that you can find just about the perfect whatever it is you are looking for on the internet and two, once you leave the website that contains it you'll always be able to find it again because of social bookmarking!
References
Fontichiaro, K.. (2008, May). Using Social Bookmarking to Organize the Web. School Library Media Activities Monthly, 24(9), 27-28. Retrieved February 10, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1466959301).
Jakes, D.. (2009, July). Cheater or Collaborator? Tech & Learning, 29(12), 50. Retrieved February 10, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1793097561).
