Social bookmarking allows an educator to create an account where they can access their favorite websites anywhere they have access to a computer and the internet. Educators are able to work at their home computer to find websites that they would like to use in the classroom and then add them to their social bookmarking page, just like saving a bookmark to your bookmark or favorites folder. The benefit of using the social bookmarking website, is that instead of having to bring in your computer or email yourself a link to the site, you can access your social bookmarking site in your classroom and present the site to your students or send the link to your students.
While this function alone would be enough for many educators, Rebecca Hedreen stated in her blog that the "real meat of the services, however, is 'tagging'" (Hedreen, 2005). Tagging allows users to add keywords to the link on the site. When a site would cover more than one area you would like to teach, instead of creating different files or folders, you would add keywords to the link that you would be able to search for later. This process allows you to mark a website for many different lessons, as well as, allowing other users to find it easier. These tags can then be used to look for similar tags from other people, allowing the user to narrow their search to only those related fields.
A final benefit of social bookmarking is that it allows users to work together easier. According to Rodd Lucier, "people can subscribe to your bookmark by RSS" (Lucier, 2008). Rather than just sending a link to your social bookmarking site to your coworkers and then having them regularly checking it, by adding a RSS feed to their information will update them whenever a new link is added to your site. This enables groups to work together efficiently. Group members would not have to send out an email message or posting to the other members. Also, when creating a social bookmarking site as a group, members can update links either through their own sites or through a shared site.
Through these three features, it is apparent that social bookmarking adds an increased level of interaction in group work, delivery of instruction, and efficiency in use.
References
Hedreen, R. (2005, February 3). Social bookmarking in education. Retrieved November 11, 2009 from http://frequanq.blogspot.com/2005/02/social-bookmarking-in- education.html
Lomas, C.P. (2005, May). 7 things you should know about social bookmarking. Retrieved November 11, 2009 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf
Lucier, R. (2008, January 8). Social bookmarking in the classroom. Retrieved November 11, 2009 from http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/01/social-bookmarking-in-classroom.html
No comments:
Post a Comment