I had mentioned in a previous post that I was mostly unfamiliar with Twitter and Social Bookmarking. Twitter . . . I am still on the fence, probably have not given it enough time or attention yet to reap the rewards. But, Social Bookmarking . . . man, I wish I had looked into this a long time ago! What a great notion, sharing useful and meaningful information with everyone. I can already see the frustration of finding relevant, educational references melting away. As I also mentioned in my last post, I seem to be fairly challenged when it comes to searching databases for recent research on our topics. I really think social bookmarking will improve my chances of further reading beyond our required and recommended texts.
I really respect the idea that people are willing to share their research efforts and not necessarily concerned with receiving any credit for doing so. Through social bookmarking we are "creating our own community of researchers that is gathering relevant information for us" (Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts p. 89). It truly is a win, win situation.
I was truly excited when I began reading the section on 'Social Bookmarking Services' in Will Richardson's book. When I watched the Common Craft video (I love those), I was quite excited to get onto delicious and sign up. The steps for joining were very basic as the video had mentioned and after I had added some buttons and transferred over my personal bookmarks I began my first search. My first search, "Social Bookmarking in the classroom." Long story short, I didn't get past exploring the first result. The site was Web 2.0 Tools and Applications - G02web20. On this site there are 65 pages of Web 2.0 tools and applications listed and introduced. Simply moving your mouse over each icon produces a small summary of what you will find at that particular site. As Joanne mentioned, we are truly just skimming the surface in the world of Web 2.0. I actually asked my husband to come over and check it out - I felt like I had struck gold! Needless to say I bookmarked the site, if you're interested here it is: http://www.go2web20.net/ .
At this point I feel fairly confident in my ability to continue to use delicious to bookmark and share resources. I am still exploring all the tools and what seems to me "advanced" items on the website. I did experience a little frustration trying to search the delicious site the other day and finding the information I was looking for. My frustrations I think came from the way people are tagging sites. A topic I will discuss further on in my post.
Discussion of the Tool in Terms of My Own Personal Learning
Personally I see myself using social bookmarking as a way of keeping track of things that my family and I are interested in. New and interesting educational sites, athletic and sporting event sites (we are always looking for affordable Canucks & Lions tickets), and websites that will help us store and manage our family digital photos and videos are definitely ways I can incorporate social bookmarking into my personal life. I can also share particular sites with friends that have the same interests or hobbies as me, which may also lead me to others around the world with similar interests. In turn could lead me on a new, but related path on shared interests. In one of the articles I read, 7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking, by Cyprien P. Lomas from the University of Queensland, he states, "These kinds of tools also encourage users to keep coming back because the folksonomy and the collection of resources are constantly changing." And, obviously, as it states in Will Richardson's book and every article I looked at on Social Bookmarking, your bookmarks are available to you any time regardless of where you are and what computer you are using. Although it is yet another online site that requires the user to maintain and update information, I really the believe the time you'll save searching for information and having the sites you need wherever you are, will still allow you to manage your time better. In another wiki I found on Social bookmarking, classroom 2dot0, it also suggested to subscribe others bookmarks using RSS. I guess then when that user bookmarks another site it will be posted on your RSS feed to decide whether you want to keep it or not.
Why wouldn't anyone want to use social bookmarking? Well, I found an article in D-Lib Magazine, from January 2006 authored by Marieke Guy and Emma Tonkin that addressed some of the issues "academics" are having with the non-traditional classification system of "tagging." Their article entitled, Folksonomies - Tidying up Tags?, first caught my eye because I had read about "folksonomy" versus "taxonomy" in Richardson's book. Also in a previous article I mentioned (7 Things . . .) Lomas referred to a folksonomy as being, "A community of users over time that will develop a unique structure of keywords to define their resources." Guy and Tonkin discuss the notion of "sloppy" or ill-defined tags used in social bookmarking, which people who like more formal classification systems do not agree with. These "academics" do not assent to "the uncontrolled and chaotic set of tagging terms that do not support searching as effectively as more controlled vocabularied do."
I mention this notion of "sloppy" tags because as I had mentioned in the first part of my reflection I had some trouble searching for specific information on Delicious using others' tags. Guy and Tonkin outlined some of the most common problems when tagging a site, but also had some suggestions on how to improve tags. Common mistakes included incorrect spelling, odd word groupings, tags that are too personal and do not mean anything to anyone else, and single-use tags. Their suggestions for improvement came from Ulises Ali Mejias, another author on social bookmarking, who created a "best practices" for tag selection. This included: using plurals instead of singulars, using lower case, grouping words using an underscore, following tag conventions started by others, and adding synonyms. I guess the question is how to get all users to use this or similar guidelines when tagging their sites? One thing I did learn was to check out the user's other bookmarks and tags to see how relevant their sites would be in regards to my research. Is this an issue - or will folksonomies and tagging soon replace traditional classification systems?
Discussion of the Tool in Terms of Teaching & Professional Learning
I really believe that teacher-librarians and classroom teachers should be able to incorporate social bookmarking into their classes. Signing up for and using sites such as Delicious is something all teachers should be able to do. I can imagine some of my colleagues proclaiming they won't be able to do this - it's amazing how second nature that response is from some of them, even though they haven't even tried it! The steps are easy to follow and you really can't 'wreck' anything. A teacher or teacher-librarian would be able to tailor bookmarks to meet individual classroom needs and research topics. As a teacher-librarian, I could see myself collaborating with another teacher to create a list of sites for the assignment and then tagging them for student access at school or at home. Implementing a site like Delicious into the classroom would enable the students to then find additional sites to bookmark for their own topics, and perhaps help others by tagging sites for their classmates and their topics.
Citeulike is a social bookmarking site for academic papers and references that was referred to in 7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking, previously mentioned. I accessed this site, did not join right away, but performed a search on Web 2.0 which resulted in over 800 results - all academic! I am sure many of you have heard of this site, but I had not, and was pretty excited to find it. If you would like to visit, here it is: http://www.citeulike.org/
http://wiki.classroom20.com/Social+Bookmarking This is a wiki that I found with some information on social bookmarking as well as a link to a Classroom 2.0 Ning where there is a discussion forum on Web 2.0 uses in the classroom and a fairly good teacher tutorial on Web 2.0. This looks like a good place to ask questions not only on social bookmarking but on most Web 2.0 applications. There is also a sample lesson plan on using Delicious with an intermediate to grade seven aged group of students. The wiki professes that, "It may become less important to know and remember where information was found and more important to know how to retrieve it." Social bookmarking will no doubt increase our chances on retrieving the information we really need to find.
The author of the wiki also discusses the benefits of social bookmarking with your class and the ability to find other classes from around the globe that may be researching a similar topic or have similar interests and further knowledge. Important issues that are being explored right now at my daughter's school are environmental issues including global warming, earth status, and providing clean drinking water for families on the other side of the world. It's hard to imagine the impact social bookmarking could have on researching topics like these. People from around the world possess a multitude of meaningful information on these topics and now thanks to social bookmarking, it can be easily shared.
I was in the library at the high school here in Chase and there was a Social Studies 10 class using the library to research a topic. If you can imagine the most traditional way of "researching" this would have been it. They were all researching different topics such as the Whiskey Trade, Underground Railroad, etc. and most of them were looking only at print material. I'm not saying print material is irrelevant, but some of the sources must have been there since the school opened and written for that age as well. There was a handful of students on computers performing a google search and bringing up some content on their topics, but had two other tabs opened to play games and check out Facebook. The classroom teacher did not venture towards the bank of computers once during the hour the class was there, so you can imagine how much "researching" was accomplished. In this example I can clearly see the benefits of teacher collaboration and social bookmarking. My mind was reeling with ideas and applications I could be using with that class. But as a TOC that day, I needed to tread lightly. You learn quickly which teachers you can lend suggestions to, some even seek out advice, and those that are offended by the same suggestions. Don't even get me started on the actual research, regurgitate type assignment they were engaged in (actually not engaged in). Having completed the Focus on Inquiry course, my outlook on "research" assignments has shifted tremendously. Okay, refocus, back to social bookmarking and this Socials 10 class. If the Social Studies teachers of the school and the librarian could make time to get together and create social bookmarking accounts for their department, they could create an incredible database on a vast array of specific topics within their subject area. The number of resources would grow immenseley if every teacher were on board and dedicated to adding and updating the account. I think this would be exciting for all academic departments within the school.
Finally, the classroom 2dot0 wiki mentioned other benefits for students using social bookmarking. Once the teacher has gone through and found the relevant sites for his/her students and the assignment, the teacher then shares the bookmarks with the class which "gives students a live link" to access the information. Last year I created a wiki with my daughter's class on Honeybees and in order for the students to access the sites I had found they each had to type in the URL into the address bar. Let me tell you, it took quite awhile for a class of grade 3 students to get onto the correct site. Also, it would "let students choose from a variety of accessible links, making for productive research." When I do create another wiki with a class I will definitely be using the benefits of social bookmarking.
No comments:
Post a Comment