Social Bookmarking

My first year as a teacher-librarian involved teaching in a well established library. The previous teacher-librarians had spent countless hours amassing an exemplary library collection tailored to the needs of students and teachers at this specific school. Unfortunately, at the end of the year, this school was one of a few schools in our district that were closed. The collection had to be packed up and sent to other schools or stored in a central location. Not wanting these fabulous resources to be lost, I was very careful when organizing these into boxes to ensure that they could easily be located at a later time.

Over the years, I have not done so well with organizing the online resources I have found or have been shown by others. Social bookmarking appears to be the answer to preventing the loss of valuable internet resources as it “is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking) It employs the benefits of traditional bookmarking, while improving on those areas in which traditional bookmarking was lacking.

Traditional Bookmarking vs. Social Bookmarking

The traditional method of bookmarking websites involved saving websites to the computer that you were on at the time you found the site. Since the site is “bookmarked in your browser”, it is now “only available on that specific computer” and you can not “easily share your bookmarks with other people.” (http://web2tutorial.wikispaces.com/social_bookmarks) Of course, this is fine if it is the only computer you use and the site you located has no value to anyone else. However, that is not usually the case. It is with increasing frequency, that I am asked about online resources that are relevant to the curriculum. If I found the site while at work (and assuming I can find the folder I saved it in), I can immediately send the URL as an email to the person or people who have requested it. However, if the site is saved on my home computer, they need to wait until I return home for me to send the URL. Another concern with traditional bookmarking is that it is restricted to only one DemoURL and one topic. (http://web2tutorial.wikispaces.com/social_bookmarks)

Social bookmarking is the evolution of traditional bookmarking. Using a social bookmarking site allows websites to be saved in an organized fashion using tags on the internet. This allows a person to access their bookmarks on any computer. Bookmarks can be made public which means that anyone with internet access and an account with the social bookmarking site can access them. No more waiting for relevant websites to be emailed! Also, since one site can be saved with multiple tags, it is easier to find all sites related to a topic.

Del.icio.us

“Social Bookmarking in Plain English on YouTube” by Lee and Sacha LeFever (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU) was a great introduction to the basics of social bookmarking. After watching this short video, I chose to revisit the social bookmarking site del.icio.us on which I had set up an account last year. I had not used it prior though because of a lack of understanding of what it actually was and how best to use it. Knowing that it is simply “the practice of saving bookmarks to a public Web site and “tagging” them with keywords” (http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf), gives me a clearer picture of how this technology will be beneficial personally and professionally.

Del.icio.us is free and easy to use. To begin with, I signed-in to my account and set up the bookmarking buttons. Since I wasn’t sure how to set them up, I accessed the help button and was provided with clear, written instructions that I used successfully. After this, I went to a few websites and chose one to add. This involved a simple click of the “Save to Delicious” button on my tool bar. A new window opened and I added tags in the correct box, leaving a space in between each tag. Notes could have been added as well. I hit “save” and then went to my del.icio.us account and was pleased to see it had worked. One of the options when you save a website is whether or not to keep it private or share it publicly. The default is to share publicly so to keep it private, you need to check off “Do not share” either when you add it or by editing the bookmark. Another feature that I used was “subscriptions”. I subscribed to “lessonplans” and discovered that there are almost 47000 bookmarked sites. After viewing a couple of them, I was able to save one by clicking on “save” beside the title of the bookmark. It was also interesting to note that “del.icio.us and other bookmarking sites offer a unique RSS feed for every tag contained on their site as well as one for every account holder.” (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6420397.html)

A concern I had when using del.icio.us was that there were quite a few bookmarks whose sites I could not access. Also, I wonder about whether or not students will be able to add the bookmarking buttons to their tool bars on our network.

Tagging

“Today, information literacy implies an ability to organize the world around us, and that encompasses the big ol’ Web.” (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6420397.html) With regards to social bookmarking, this means using tags. Tags are a way to sort the websites you bookmarked to find them later. (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU) I found that I had to consider how I planned on using the sites to determine the tags I gave them. For instance, tagging a website on a unit for Rome meant not just tagging it as “Rome” but also as “lessons” and “grade7”. I can also edit this bookmark and add more tags later if I choose. I can even add a unique tag to signal that it is a site that I want to use for a specific class. This unique tag could also be used by others when they find sites for the topic being learned.

Tagging involves people determining keywords which are based on their own choices and not on any pre-approved list of tags. This has led to “folksonomies” which are “a homegrown taxonomy for the Web.” (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6420397.html) As a teacher-librarian, I use a global system of categorizing books called the Dewey Decimal system. I wonder then if these “folksonomies” will eventually lead to a more organized system. I have to admit that I was tempted to add the Dewey Decimal numbers to some of my bookmarks. I think they would probably fit well but not necessarily be the tag that others would use to search.



Sharing

As the name states, social bookmarking is social. “It’s all about collaborating and sharing bookmarks amongst people of similar interests, whether or not you know these people in real life.” (http://web2tutorial.wikispaces.com/social_bookmarks) The focus is on creating a network of valuable sites as determined by people within the online community. “And together, using these tools, we can build comprehensive resource lists much more effectively than any one of us could working alone.” (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6420397.html) Time is valuable for everyone. How wonderful is it to know that you can locate great resources in a fraction of the time through social bookmarking. Also, since there are many “web savvy users” searching for sites, this results in “links to sites of higher quality” (http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/social-bookmarking) than those that the rest of us could find. The human factor means that sharing sites through social bookmarks are superior to the usual Google searches. “Google searches are primarily designed to find articles based on popularity. Computer reboot programs run these searches.” (http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/social-bookmarking) Popularity does not necessarily mean the site is valuable.

Social Bookmarking in Classrooms and School Libraries

Within the classroom and school library, social bookmarking has the ability to support learning. “[L]ibrarians and teachers can tailor bookmarks to meet a classroom’s curricular and research needs.” (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6403269.html) For instance, at my school, students will be participating in a Science Fair. The teachers and I can search for websites through search engines and through tags on the social bookmarking site that will generate interest and give some suggestions for projects. We can decide on one tag or a number of tags and provide students with these to search. Once students have chosen projects, we can then add sites geared only to those projects that are chosen and students can add sites they find that are relevant to their or other students’ needs. Talk about collaboration!

The evaluation of websites is important when researching and when it comes to social bookmarking, “students are more diligent about evaluating resources because they know their peers will be using them.” (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6403269.html) Students can be introduced to this skill and then further learn it when bookmarking. Initially, all sites that appear to be relevant to a particular topic could be bookmarked. These sites could be divided amongst students and evaluated using the criteria outlined by the teacher and/or teacher-librarian. The sites that are found to not be useful could then be deleted.

Efficient search techniques can be taught through the comparison of a Google search and a del.icio.us search. Recently, a visual dictionary had been requested by a colleague for her ESL student. I was unsuccessful in loading a CD Rom onto her networked computer so I decided to look online. The quality of visual dictionaries that I found through a search on del.icio.us was far greater than those found on Google. Students can be taught the importance of tags (keywords) when searching. “It may become less important to know and remember where information was found and more important to know how to retrieve it using a framework created by and shared with peers and colleagues.” (http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf)

Book clubs and sharing collections of books through sites such as LibraryThing or Shelfari are another way in which social bookmarking can be used. After reading a book, one class in my school wrote their review of the book which we called “pageturners”. These were shared on a bulletin board in the library and as part of the lunch time announcements. I would think that for many (if not all) students, it would be far more rewarding to share their thoughts on books to a greater audience through a social bookmarking site.

Other Social Bookmarking Sites

LibraryThing, Shelfari, Diigo, and Furl were all sites I visited and plan on further exploring. Both Diigo and Furl save copies of the website pages in your account, unlike del.icio.us, so I may consider utilizing one of these sites in the future. Diigo also has an offer for educators to sign on with an educator account. This allows for upgrades to a regular account that is specific to creating class accounts.

“Developing self-organizational skills in this world of overwhelming information is key to enhancing your professional and personal learning practices.” (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6420397.html) Social bookmarking sites are a great way to become more organized, as well as working collaboratively with others.