BP10.2009112.Social Bookmarking

In December 2006, Roger Riddell, online editor for eSchool News, wrote an article entitled “Social bookmarking makes its mark in education.”  Throughout the article he speaks of the advantages of social bookmarking and its practical use in education.  He even goes so far as to say, “these applications offer an exciting change for teachers, researchers and pupil” (p. 1).  The only problem is somebody forgot to tell educators.  I took a small survey in my building on Friday to see who knew and understood the concept of social bookmarking, the results of which astonished even me.  Of the 36 staff members who responded to my email question only 8 had heard of social bookmarking and only 4 had actually used the application.  It should interest you to know that of our technologically savvy staff one was our IT, one a graduate of the Full Sail EMDT program, one a current student in the EMDT, and finally one currently taking graduate classes in Educational Leadership at Nova University.  Several others currently taking graduate level classes had never heard of Delicious or the concept of social bookmarking.  The results needless to say were disappointing; the technology is there yet we fail to educator our educators in its existence and how to use it.  Perhaps the results were what they were because I work in an elementary school and would be different in a middle or high school, but somehow I have my doubts.  We spend countless hours attending weekly workshops on how to improve our role as teacher, yet something as simple as collecting, tagging, and sharing resources through social bookmarking we fail to educate teachers on.

So how can social bookmarking be successfully implemented into the school environment?  (Darby & Gilmour, 2009) provide readers with the idea of incorporating Delicious bookmarks onto websites as a means of compiling and sharing information on specific topics.  The article provides specific information on extracting data from a users account and how to display this data for others to easily access.  My school website offers a section related to Positive Behavior Support and I’m going to see if the PBS resources I’m finding for my action research project can somehow be linked to the parent article in our website.

Gordon-Murnane (2009) also talks specifically about the use of Delicious and the benefits it offers not only in the workplace, but personally as well.  The article spoke directly about the sometimes-overwhelming amount of information available through the Internet and the cumbersome task of keeping that information organized and useful.  The article spoke of the advantages of using social bookmarks to “keep things found (individual collection), sharing collaboration (folksonomy), vertical searches, and portability/mobility (multiple access points)” (p. 1).  The concept of folksonomy or sharing of bookmarked information to create specific groups offers a great advantage to both the teacher and the student.  Rather than performing a web search and sorting through endless resources, both the good and the bad, the user can search and select from the resources that others have used and found useful, saving countless hours of research time.  Not to mention that each time the group uses and saves information related to the specific topic the better the service becomes.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have sat in a meeting using my laptop only to realize the bookmark I was hoping to use was located on my desktop computer, frustrating and occasionally even embarrassing when I have left a meeting to go and retrieve what I needed from the other computer.  So the thought of putting this tool to use for me personally is exciting.  My only concern, as is often a concern within the school system, is whether or not our districts IT police band the Delicious tool.

References

Darby, A., & Gilmour, R. (2009). Tutorial: Adding Delicious Data to Your Library Website. Information Technology & Libraries, 28(2), 100-103. Retrieved November 5, 2009 from http://ital-ica.blogspot.com/2009/06/adding-delicious-data-to-your-library.html

Gordon-Murnane, L. (2009). Social Bookmarking, Folksonomies, and Web 2.0 Tools. Searcher, 14(6), 26-38. Retrieved November 7, 2009 from http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/ gi_0199-5609708/Social-bookmarking-folksonomies-and-Web.html

Riddell, R. (2006). Social bookmarking makes its mark in education.  eSchool News, Technology news for today’s K-20 Educator.  Retrieved  November 5, 2009 from http://www.eschoolnews.com/