Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking allows you to bookmark webpages in the cloud (meaning you can access them from anywhere) and also share your selections with others. One way this can be used in the classroom is for a teacher to create a group of websites for a special project and share that list with the students, so that students go to sites that have already been evaluated and you cut down on the time students may waste looking through sites that aren’t useful.

I love social bookmarking for the following reasons:

I can organize gobs of bookmarks.
I can access those gobs of bookmarks anywhere. I don't have to be on my laptop with the right browser open.
I can add to my gobs of bookmarks from anywhere.
I can search bookmarks and find websites/articles that others have determined to be worthwhile. They've vetted the Google search for me.

Social Bookmarking Tools

Diigo- Quick bookmarks, relies on hashtags for sorting. Nice feature that allows highlighting segments on webpages.

Screenshot of Diigo

Delicious- use bookmarklet to quickly add bookmarks. Use of hashtags essential for sorting/organizing bookmarks. Can add brief description. Simple, easy to use interface.

Symbaloo- Visual buttons for bookmarks. Can customize buttons, search existing buttons and add new ones. It's time consuming to add new ones.

URList: Use a bookmarklet. Organize bookmarks to separate boards and sub-topics on each board. Can put a board in "play" mode where you can navigate in the same screen from one page to the next. Dr. Dutton loves this tool (it's a new discovery, but I see many future applications!)

Assignment Option #1

If you're not already familiar with hashtags, read this wikipedia hashtag explanation. Explore different hashtags on Diigo and Delicious. If you're not sure what to look for, here's a list of the best education hashtags. Report on your findings!

OR

Assignment Option #2

Begin to gather bookmarks on one of the sites. How userfriendly is the site? How easily are you able to add bookmarks? Would you distribute this to your students? How would that work with your chosen site? Report on your findings!