Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?

VOICETHREAD>>>>THE BEGINNING>>>>

This was an interesting week for my professional learning (and it still is). It’s been a busy week, we are preparing our house to put it on the market in the next few weeks and we’ve been busy painting, touching up, cleaning, purging, and selling things madly. With report cards on the near horizon, the pile of marking grows and the preparations for report cards begin. To add on to this, I needed to explore a tool I have never used before (which is a first in this class). Well, I have to admit that I probably should have spent more time playing with VoiceThread, but you know how it goes, not enough hours in a day after school and hauling kids around to evening activities. Never-the-less, I did manage to dip my feet into VoiceThread and found that it was pretty easy to use. Here’s what I’ve discovered in my short exploration of VoiceThread so far……

In the beginning…
1. I created my account.
2. I looked to commoncraft for a video about voicethread and found nothing.
3. Disappointment set in.
4. I watched a little baseball.
5. I procrastinated more.
6. I painted the living room and main hallway in our house.
7. I went back to VoiceThread and “fiddled”.
8. I uploaded pictures.
9. I added a vocal comment to a picture.
10. I said to myself…”that’s it?”
11. I came to the conclusion after a few more minutes of searching around the website that…. “yes, that is it”.
12. Left it at that.
13. Next day uploaded a few more pictures and explored some of the other options in making comments on pictures.
14. Looked at a few voicethreads posted on the website.
15. Came to the conclusion that this is really easy and pretty cool.
16. Thought of how this could be used in the class……hmmm…..still brainstorming ideas….I think I’ll try it out with some kids tomorrow.
17. Shut the computer down thinking "soon it's the weekend and I have a lot to do" and "crap, it's halloween tomorrow".
18. Went to bed.....zzzzzzzz......(ok, I obviously did this before I went to sleep, but I think you catch the drift)

DB

In the wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki room….

My Wiki Experience

It seems like such a long time ago already since I was introduced to wiki’s. Back in fall 2006, I was taking EDES 545 and our class held much of its discussion and assignment posting on a wiki. This was my first experience using a wiki and I remember feeling some anxiety over using this “new” technology. I really didn’t have a choice whether I used a wiki or not and so I dove right in. While using the wiki as a primary vehicle for communication in our class, I wanted to test out a wiki in my classroom (at the time, I was a grade 5/6 classroom teacher). I set up a wiki for literature circles for my class. I organized it so we were studying 6 different novels and each group had 4-6 students in it. It took some work on my part to set the pages up for each novel but other than that, the process went quite smoothly. My class had not heard of wikis yet and this was something that I told them they were going to be the “guinea pigs” for. Before I go any further, I have to let you know that the class I had this year was your dream class that I’m convinced you only see in your career once. Anything I threw at them, they embraced and ran with, especially when it came to technology. Literature Circles with the wiki. Well, my class really loved working on the wiki and it was amazing how they held one another accountable for their work more through technology than they did face to face. Students even explored and commented on other group’s wikis about their novels, which was quite interesting. Almost all of my students in the class had Internet access at home and many of them did additional work on the wiki outside of class time (which was not required since I set the wikis up with sufficient class time to complete all work due to not all students having access at home). I was extremely pleased how this worked out for my class and I even invited other teachers (including the t-l) in the school to comment on the student wikis.

Another forum of wiki that I have been involved in is a wiki that teacher-librarians in my school division have established called the learning library. The purpose of this wiki is for all t-l’s to contribute towards a resource page that all teachers can access at any given time. The hope is that it will become an ongoing resource page that continually evolves and grows so teachers don’t have to spend hours researching on their own. I find it interesting that in the teaching profession that there are still a great number of teachers that do not want to share their resources with others. This is another forum for teachers to open up and share what they are doing in their classrooms throughout our system. To date, I would say that this resource has not been used much due to a few reasons. First, many t-l’s that were introduced to the learning library wiki are not very wiki savvy and have not gone back to the page since it was introduced at a t-l meeting late last year (even though everyone was given the opportunity to log in and contribute together in a group). Second, time. Need I say more? Finally, I don’t feel too confident that this wiki has been shared by t-l’s with teachers in their schools. Why not? I’m guessing it is linked strongly to the t-l’s comfort with the wiki as well as time. I think it provides a wonderful opportunity for teachers and t-l’s to collaboratively plan and research but getting people to use it is the real challenge.


Research

There is no shortage of professional literature that states the many benefits of wikis for educational purposes. Wikipedia alone, in my mind, is an amazing resource that has seemingly endless amount information on any possible topic. What I find great about wikipedia is that the information is current and continually updated, so you don’t have to wait for the next publishing of the world book encyclopedia to be issued to have the latest and greatest information (which on some topics is out of date by the time the encyclopedia’s are printed). The whole idea of having an online collaborative resource from people anywhere in the world at any given time is truly an ingenious invention. Wikipedia’s page on wiki offers a good overview of the basics of a wiki.

The concept of offering the ability to edit a page by anyone some may feel is opening a can of worms.
“Most people, when they first learn about the wiki concept, assume that a Web site that can be edited by anybody would soon be rendered useless by destructive input. It sounds like offering free spray cans next to a grey concrete wall. The only likely outcome would be ugly graffiti and simple tagging, and many artistic efforts would not be long lived. Still, it seems to work very well.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIKI)
A person who maintains a wiki post is faced with the challenge of keeping up with revisions on a wiki to ensure the material is appropriate and correct. Otherwise, a wiki could be “graffitied”. Control of editing a wiki can be given to specific individuals who register with an account but some argue that this goes against the true purpose of a wiki.


Free You Say?

Yup, it’s true. Just like so many other things on the World Wide Web, you can create your own wiki through several websites. Here are a few of the most popular. In brackets I've included the link for the page associated with education for each site.

wikispaces
pbwiki (pbwiki education)
wetpaint (wetpaint education)
wikidot (wikidot education)

I took a little time to explore the above wikis and what they have to offer for educators like us. In the past I have only used wikispaces personally and professionally and I have found it to be an excellent site to use, navigate and teach with. It is very user friendly and students have had nothing bad to say about using it.

Wetpaint was the one website that really stood out from exploring their educational page. I found a variety of ready made templates that you could use for a variety of purposes such as posting class information (syllabus), daily updates, assignments, etc., as well as group work wikis for students. As I think ahead into the school year, I may venture out of my wikispaces comfort zone and try wetpaint. Each of the wikis mentioned above have great educational possibilities and they are all ad free when used for educational purposes, a nice touch so students aren’t distracted by other information on their page.


Educational Implications

Students learning from and with one another. This is what wikis promote. We speak so frequently about collaboration as professionals and how beneficial it is to us in the field of education but do we live this in the class? Sure we all do group projects from throughout the year and we know who contributes to the projects. This is another means to have students publish their thoughts, learning’s, opinions, and frustrations through the World Wide Web. A collaborative approach that is as simple as edit, write and save can empower students to learn from one another in a different way. As the video “Wiki’s in Plain English” by commoncraft states, wikis are the best way to organize and coordinate input.

Richardson’s chapter on Wikis in Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms offers a great overview of wikis and how they can be used in the classroom. He also offers some insight into Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia and what challenges we face within schools with such resources.


Closing Thoughts

There are so many ways to use wikis in our classrooms and the ease of creating this powerful learning tool is about as easy as it gets for even those who are not web 2.0 savvy. I’m looking at setting up a few wikis to link on my virtual library webpage in the not too distant future. I’d like to set one up for my senior literature group as well as one for a creative writing project with a class. It would be interesting to try wikis in a variety of ways to see how learning outcomes are affected when using this technology. Darn, another good idea I need to try out. You’d think the hamster would get worn out by now wouldn’t you?

Darryl

There ain't no bun in my hair lady!

What is a virtual library? Joyce Valenza describes it as the following.  “Your library Web page is your second front door. It meets your students where they live, and play, and work, with 24/7, just-in-time, just-for-me support and intervention. It creates online signage for students and staff. It projects the image of the librarian as a 21st century teacher and information professional. The effective library Web page pulls together, in one unified interface, all of a library's resources--print and electronic.”

 

“The library website represents the library program. It offers guidance and instruction while it fosters independent learning. It models careful selection. It offers valuable public service and can redefine “community.” The site supports reading, learning, and the building of knowledge.” Valenza’s webquest on school library websites (http://schoollibrarywebsites.wikispaces.com/) provides a great resource on what to look for in a virtual library website.

 

Here’s my 2 cents on a few sites I explored.

Springfield Township

Right from the first page, this website is appealing for students particularly. The graphics are student friendly and really shows how technology is front and centre for this school. Now granted they have Joyce Valenza as their t-l, of course this will be the standard that we all strive towards in offering a virtual library that is student and teacher friendly with constantly updated information for users. There is an amazing wealth of resources available through this page. One of the things I really like about the page is that many of the links are either converted to or are in the process of being converted to wiki’s. This is a great idea as not only the t-l is contributing to the contents of the pages but others are invited to do so as well. Currently, my school division is in the process of establishing a resource page wiki for t-l’s and teachers to access throughout our division. It has been slow going as many of our t-l’s are not comfortable with or familiar with wiki’s (even after in-service). As a result, the majority of the contributions have come from only a few t-l’s in our system. Hopefully this will change in the near future. Have a peek and see what you think. Learning Library

Grandview Library

It was interesting to explore this site after visiting the Springfield High School website. It was great to see a K-3 school with an active virtual library that is being used. Too often we think of the “older kids” when we think of those who access a virtual library. Having students get familiar with technology early is a great asset. Getting them involved in a virtual library at this age is invaluable. If we can teach students to access virtual libraries at an early age, then they get to know and rely on having the valuable resource that this can be throughout their academic journey (however long that may be). Wiki’s again came up as a tool that is being used through virtual libraries. It really helps emphasize the importance of collaboration at all levels in schools. I also loved the idea of the blogs with the kids being audio and video blogs. Typing at this age is a challenge (trust me I’ve been trying this lately, but that is a whole other story); so setting up voice recordings (podcasts) is a great idea. Time would be the challenge for this one!

Bessie Chin Library

Upon first glance, I could honestly say that this is not a virtual library that I would spend a lot of time exploring. To begin, I found the layout very unpleasing to the eye. It looks as though there is just a bunch of links pasted in 3 columns. The text is small there is not much to draw the reader in to explore further. There are many useful links on this page for high school students (the intended audience) and for those who are using it and familiar with it, I’m sure it does the job. Personally, I need something else that grabs my attention more. Icons, rather than text may be helpful in drawing students in to use the virtual library more easily. I would challenge that the page is a little text heavy and that this may scare away users that are not text reliant. Without spending too much time exploring, I did not find that there were a tremendous number of resources for teachers, but instead it was geared more towards students. The more I played with the website, the more information I found. There is no doubt that there is a vast amount of information that one can access through this virtual library, however, I still get hung up a little on its visual appeal. Will it get used if it is not visually appealing to students? Research shows that students of this generation need something to catch their interest quickly or they will click away and look for something more appealing.

Parkcrest Media Centre

Tracy has done a good job creating a user-friendly virtual library for her school. The bubbles on the left side of the page make it easy for the user to quickly find what they are looking for. The topics are well organized and she really has created links for many important and useful tools available to students and teachers in her school. This is a good example of one of those sites that you know someone took a lot of time to create and you hope that the intended audience is using it. I like the fact that she has attempted to keep the site light on text and easy to navigate. This is so important when you have a variety of grade levels and reading levels accessing the site on a daily basis.

 

Maybry Middle School

This one may not be specific to virtual libraries, however I did want to share this school website with others.  Set up like an online magazine, Maybry Middle School website truly has it all going on. There is certainly no lack in visual appeal for the website and it is very user friendly. There is a definite sense of professionalism on this webpage and it is actually required by teachers to keep a webpage current. Technology is definitely a focus at this school. However, there is not a webpage for the resource centre. There is only a page that shows the media specialist’s pictures and a paragraph describing them and the services they provide along with a link to their blog. Interesting that a school with such a push on technology does not have a virtual library as an expectation for the school.

Reflection

As my wife peeked over my shoulder and looked at my typing, she immediately asked me if I’d looked at Joyce Valenza’s website. Our conversation then went in the direction of that 4 letter swear word in education…TIME… Yes, her virtual library is what we should all strive towards but when do we get the time to do this? Certainly not while we are at school. So it falls onto our lap of doing it on our own time. If this is the case, hopefully you have access to the school website from home otherwise you’ll be putting in some mighty late nights! Support….do you have a technology consultant/specialist who can assist you in designing, planning and publishing your website? Know-how….do you have the know how to create a webpage?

 

Our school division moved to a website publishing system called Drupal last year. Drupal provides a template that is the same for all schools. Within the school website, each teacher has the ability to have their own webpage(s) and a blog. It is a pretty easy system to use for even the technology rookies on staff. It’s not flashy but you have the ability to do many of the things you could using a program such as Dreamweaver. I have played with it a fair amount and am still in the process of tweaking it to what I want my library webpage to look like and include. Unfortunately TIME is getting in the way again and preventing me from updating it as much as I would like to. The good thing about Drupal is that I can work on my webpage from wherever I want, whenever I want. Here’s the link to my current virtual library webpage: Wascana Virtual Resource Centre

Educational Impact

The power that an effective virtual library website has on student learning can be tremendous. As many libraries are understaffed, there is not always a t-l available to help students or teachers when they need it. The need for a virtual library is now essential. If students are linked to virtual library that holds most of the information needed in their studies, the need for the face-to-face contact is no longer as great. Don’t get me wrong, there is no replacement for face to face interaction, however, many of our students today are so “wired” that they want to be able to visit a website that can help guide them in their journey as effortlessly as possible. The same can be said for teachers. Collaborative planning will not and cannot be replaced by a virtual library, however a virtual library can save teachers tremendous amounts of time as they organize and research for their teaching.

 

So, what makes a good virtual library website?

Content and Design are the 2 categories that need to be considered when making an effective virtual library website.

Content

1. Information access & delivery
2. Teaching & learning
3. Books & reading
4. Program administration

Design

1. School/curricular: Is there evidence that the site supports learning and school goals?
2. Navigation: Does the site facilitate access? Is it clear and logically organized? Intuitive?
3. Aesthetics / Appeal for the Audience
4. Level of Interactivity: Opportunities for collaboration, feedback, involvement
5. Freshness

 

Wow! There is much to consider when creating a virtual library but the possible payoff is tremendous if students and teachers know what information is available and how to access it properly.

 

“If you build it, they will come”

Field of Dreams

…but you still have to teach them what to do when they get there!

 

 

Here is some of the literature I accessed during this weeks learning.

 

Audrey P Church (2005, March). Virtual School Libraries - The Time Is Now! MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 12(2), 8-12.

Baumbach, D. J. (2005). The school library media center web page. Knowledge Quest, 33 (3), 8-12.

Braxton, B. (2004). Putting your school library online. Teacher Librarian, 31 (4).

Jurkowski, O. (2004). School library website components. TechTrends, 48 (6), 56-60.

Valenza, J. K. (2005). The virtual library. Educational Leadership, 63 (4).

Warlick, D. (2005). Building web sites that work for your media center. Knowledge Quest, 33 (3).

 

Websites of interest:

 

Regina Public Schools Virtual Resource Centre Homepage 

 

Darryl’s virtual resource centre

Posting my story again

Just thought I'd try posting my podcast another way with images (a video podcast). I kind of like this one better since it adds the visuals.

darryl

Whew! Just a little more!

Did I learn a lot?

Yup! I learned the quirkiness of different blogs and podcasting tools and that things don’t always go as planned (yes, even with technology). Rather than regurgitate what I stated in the previous post, I’ll just say…read the previous post, I think it’s clear where my learning took place.

So, what do I do now?

Well, I have a few ideas of where I want to take podcasting.
1. Create a professional podcast for our school staff. I could include helpful technology hints for teachers without taking up too much time (2 minutes max.) to the school website (resource centre page).
2. Post mini-lessons on-line for my literature groups
3. Have students create podcasts to emphasize using voice in their writing.
4. Student presentations posted to website for all to listen to.
This is a brief list of where I’d like to start. I’m feeling rather ambitious (since it’s a short week this week) so perhaps I’ll start one this week….I think I’ll start #3 this week by having my senior literature group choose some favourite Easy Books and record them using Garage Band.

Professionally, I would like to see more of my staff simply use technology. I am hosting some technology lunch & learn sessions starting next week and I see podcasting fitting nicely into this plan. As for student learning, any time I have used Garage Band with classes in the past, they have been so excited. They have a blast creating and listening to themselves on the computer. Student engagement, I feel, is the greatest factor to success when students are using tools such as these. The more I can do to get technology into their hands, the easier it is for me to get them to learn. It truly is a great hook and motivating tool for many of the student I teach.

Till next time,

DB out!

This blog is too long....this blog is too short....this blog is just right

Before I begin, I feel the need to apologize for the title to this blog. I have no other excuse other than I couldn't come up with anything really creative tonight.

The Beginning (or at least somewhere in the middle)

Where to begin with podcasting? Probably one of the most familiar and widely used web 2.0 tools out there. I’ve had some experience with creating podcasts in the past few years, but I would hardly consider myself an expert on the subject. Primarily I’ve tinkered around with creating a podcast through a program called Garage Band that can be found on Mac computers (yup, another Mac plug from me). If you haven’t had the opportunity to play with Garage Band, get your hands on a Mac and have a blast. It is a fun application that cannot only help you create podcasts, but entire musical scores as well. It is extremely easy to use and once you start, you’ll find time vanishing before your very eyes (or finger tips).

Enough about Mac’s. To try something different with podcasting, I thought I’d try out audacity. I found the simplicity of audacity as the first major benefit to the application. For those will little or no experience, Audacity was very non-threatening and simple to use. All you really have to do is click the record button and start your podcast broadcast! However, I became bored with it quickly so I returned to Garage Band where there was more “stuff” to play with!

The Research

“Podcasting in Plain English” offers some great introductory information to the rookies of podcasting. The major points I took away watching the video were as follows.
• Time does not matter with podcasting. When you download a podcast (or subscribe to one) you can then listen to it whenever you want, wherever you want. It is at your disposal on your demand.
• Podcasting is easy to do (to both post and listen). All you need is a computer, microphone, video camera (optional), and a computer that is networked to the Internet.
• There are all types of topics for all types of people available through podcasts
• You can subscribe to podcasts so you automatically receive new shows from the publisher.
• Listen to podcasts on computers and mp3 players.
• You can access podcasts anywhere once you’ve downloaded them!

The apple education website offers some great info on podcasting and how it can be used in education. It also speaks to the opportunity to spark student interest by enabling them to tap into their creativity digitally. They also offer an excellent video series on podcasting in education. I found these very useful as they gave a much more thorough description of podcasting that you would find in “Podcasting in Plain English”. The first video is an introduction to podcasting, the second is “Meeting Standards” which addresses how podcasting is used in education to meet curriculum goals with specific examples from an educator from Mayberry Middle School. The final episode is from an administrator’s standpoint of podcasting. Now, obviously there is a strong Mac bias in these videos and they talk specifically about Garage Band and how to “fiddle” with a podcast. The videos are a little on the long side, but they are very informational. I would not necessarily recommend these videos for the first time podcaster, especially if you are not using a Mac.

Another helpful site is PoducateMe.com. This site offers a guide to help educate readers on the benefits of podcasting in the class and the how to’s of podcasting. This site is also very thorough and offers pages and pages of information of how to make and publish podcasts. I would say that there is too much detail here for the average podcaster, but it definitely gives you the opportunity to read more if you wish to.

Guides and Tutorials.com (ttp://www.guidesandtutorials.com/podcasting-in-education.html) offers many examples of how podcasting has been used and is being used in K-12 schools in America. There are many good examples that provide ideas for those new and experienced in podcasting.

Play Time for Darryl & Kids!

As I’ve mentioned above, I have had the opportunity to play with podcasting before and when I explore different tools to publish podcasts, I always seem to return to my application of choice, Garage Band. What I really love about Garage Band is that there are so many pre-recorded sounds available to add to your podcast. Now, there is a drawback to having so many tools at your disposal, TIME! Time very quickly passes when you’re playing with different sound effects that you can add throughout your podcast. Oh well, it’s not like I’ve wasted time on less productive things in the past! So I played. I’ve inserted various special effects into my podcast so hopefully you can pick up on them as you have a listen (I know, you’ll probably be hysterically laughing too loudly to hear them the first 5 times through).

I did run out of time to add pictures to my podcast so they would change as my podcast played. This is on my things to do for the future. I had the pictures picked out but again; time wasn’t on my side (it wasn’t on the turkey’s side this weekend either).

Challenges / pains in the rear

The first challenge to consider when using garage band is how you are going to save your podcast and export it. It took a little refreshing (since I hadn’t done it since last school year) but I remembered that I must convert it to an mp3 file. So, first I had to export my podcast to itunes, then in itunes I had to convert the file to an mp3 from an m4…something or other (as you can see I don’t get too hung up on names…visual recognition is big for me). This is when the pain in the rear began.

Pain in the rear!

I’m not sure if I’ve exhausted all my efforts yet or not but far as I could tell, I could not directly upload my podcast onto my blog in blogspot. So, after watching a quick 2 min. tutorial (can’t say I’m a big fan of these as I usually find more than 1/2 of the info a waste of my time) I did come to the conclusion that I had to first upload my podcast to an online file storage site. I was very selective in what I chose (the first one listed), box.net. So, I had to create an account and then upload my mp3. When uploaded, it provided me with an address to include in my blog so I could link to my podcast. Unfortunately there was not an icon put into my blog. Instead, my title to my blog became the link to my podcast via box.net. Once you click on this, you had the choice to download or listen to my podcast. I’m not overly pleased with how this worked but I’ll have to live with it for now. I’m sure there must be a better way to access my podcast through my blog but the literature on blogspot doesn’t support this. Hmmm….so I’m left scratching my head (once again….thankfully not as a result of lice).

Final thoughts

Pain in the read aside, I found this a very valuable exercise. I can definitely see the learning possibilities using a blog (another post as this one has already gone on too long).

Darryl

Story-time with the Bussiere's

Here's my podcast that I created with my kids this weekend. Hope you enjoy it 1/2 as much as we did making it!

To have a listen, just click on the title of this blog (Story-time with the Bussiere's)

Darryl

Where the heck did I leave the phone?

Back in the day.....

Remember that time saving button the “handset locator” they invented years ago to put on cordless phones to help locate the phone when you left it behind the couch pillows? You press the button and the phone beeps so you can find it easily. Brilliant invention wasn’t it? Think of all the time and frustration it saved you from searching high and low, between couch cushions and under stacks of newspapers, mail or magazines. Well, today it’s something different and it will save you even more time!!!

“If I could only remember that website that I have bookmarked on my home computer, it would be so useful right now. I could pass it on to the teacher so they could check it out”. Have you ever thought this? Perhaps it was for yourself or a friend, or family member. Way back in the dark ages (2004’ish), we were stuck with our bookmarks on one computer and remembering a url was completely dependent on your memory at any given time. No longer is this the case. Sites such as delicious and furl have enabled you to access all your favourites from any computer or personal device that is hooked up to the internet. In these social bookmarking sites, attaching tags to your sites with key words enables you to share and collaborate with others regardless of your purpose. Oh, and did I mention it’s easy?

Delicious

I found immediate success and pleasure working with Delicious. I found the process very easy to follow and easy to manage. It is quite easy to organize my bookmarks how I would like them to be organized and the time I spent with it is certainly worth it when I access the net on a computer other than my home or work computer. This does not happen often, but I definitely see the power of being able to access such information wherever I am. I can certainly see myself using my delicious account more as I use my iPod touch more often in the school day & beyond. As I travel from class to class as a t-l. I am now able to access websites very efficiently and effectively with a few simple clicks. For example, I have bookmark folders and tags attached to each website for different subject areas at different grade levels. This way if I am in a grade 4 class that is studying pioneers, I can quickly access my bookmarks through any computer to find a website that may be relevant for students or teachers working in this area. Then, as I move to a grade 8 class to teach about authenticating websites, I can easily access my information literacy sites in this area of study. As our role as t-l’s continues to evolve, the importance of being able to access information from any place at any time becomes of the utmost importance. Delicious will definitely impact the effectiveness and timeliness of materials I can access.

Unfortunately I could not say the same for Furl. Apparently Furl doesn’t accommodate Mac users that use Safari as their primary browser. This was disappointing as I am a Mac user that does 75% of my web surfing using Safari. I am also of the thought process that if I can’t figure it out in the first few minutes, I’ll abandon exploration and find something that is easier to manage. In today’s technological age, why waste time with something that isn’t user friendly? It’s kind of like writing code to create a website instead of using a free, simple web creator to make your own website.

My Learning

The most valuable learning that I took from researching and “playing” with social bookmarking sites such as delicious, is that not only do I benefit by organizing my bookmarks by using tags, but I now have access to bookmarks of other individuals. As an educator this is extremely helpful and can drastically cut down on the amount of time you may spend looking for appropriate and applicable websites. The “social” aspect of social bookmarking can be an incredible tool as your bookmarks and others are now public and not limited to a select few. For a great overview of social bookmarking, check out the You Tube video “Social Bookmarking in Plain English”. Now of course you do have the choice to keep your bookmarks private if you do so wish, so you don’t have to worry about any privacy issues that may arise whatever those may be.

The educational benefits are far reaching. “It’s quickly becoming a popular way for teachers and students to store, classify, share, and search links, all of which are gathered by many users.” Donna DesRoches states in her article “All Together Now
Social bookmarking offers a new way to store and share Web sites
By” published in the School Library Journal (Jan, 2007). Social bookmarking creates another opportunity for students and teachers to collaborate on-line. You are now able to access other individuals professional resources without having to contact them immediately. Another benefit is that you are able to create social bookmarking communities with individuals who have similar interests. By establishing these communities, you know those in your community have similar interests or purposes in the collection of their bookmarks.

Wrapping It Up

"7 Things you should know about Social Bookmarking" offers a good overview of social bookmarking for anyone new to this organizational and collaborative tool. In addition to this, wikipedia’s social bookmarking site also gives a good introduction and offers several links to further explore social networking sites.

I’m busy attaching tags as we speak to my already large collection of bookmarks in my delicious account so wish me luck and happy social bookmarking & tagging to all!

Darryl