The Benefits of Social Bookmarking

The Beginning
Social bookmarking - what is it? Social bookmarking is the practice of saving bookmarks to a public Web site and "tagging" them with keywords. Bookmarking on the other hand, is the practice of saving the address of a Web site you wish to visit in the future on your computer.(Educause Learning Initiative, 2005)

Social bookmarking sites are brand new to me. I have bookmarked sites on a regular basis on my computer but I am the typical bookmarker who bookmarks with little thought to organization and then never goes back to check it out again because it has become too difficult to find. I wonder if using a social bookmarking site will allow me to be better organized and give me easier access to websites.?

As I began my research on this topic, I found myself a little overwhelmed. There was almost too much information to take in. I followed all the websites posted on the trailfire and looked at many of the videos. But like many of the tools we have learned about so far, you just need to jump in and try it out. I signed up for an account with both Diigo.com and Delicious to give each one a fair shake.

The Process
What makes social bookmarking sites so special is the ability to tag your bookmarks - give them descriptors. This allows you to find them again and also lets others who are looking for a simialr topic find sites you have discovered. I find all the hype about "tagging" quite humourous. It seems like this is all new to everyone and that they have discovered something wonderful and exciting. And I suppose they have. And yet as a teacher-librarian, tagging is what we do, just in a more systematic way. In the process of "tagging" our bookmarks, we are using everyday "keywords" instead of very specific subject headings. However, I must ask, in the end, will we simply have too many sites all listed under "technology" or "blogs" or whatever the topic of the day may be?

Steve Hargadon, in his article Cool Tools: Best of Social Bookmarking describes three different sites that all provide social bookmarking cabilities. Each site has something specific about it that distinguishes it from its counterparts. Delicious http://delicious.com/ was the first site to introduce "tagging" and is probably the most popular. Diigo http://www.diigo.com/ allows users to import its bookmarks from Delicious and "allows users to highlight passages and leave comments on Web pages for other Diigo users to see." (Hargadon, 2007) I have also discovered that any bookmark I save to Diigo, I can have Diigo save it to my Delicious account as well. Now isn't that nice that they play together so well. With Furl http://www.furl.net/ you can rate sites as well as access any archived site, even if the site is no longer active.

I haven't quite made up my own mind yet which one best meets my needs. I had some trouble posting the little icon for Delicious and since Diigo is the one now on my toolbar, it may win out by default.

How Will I Use This Personally
How will social bookmarking benefit me and my family personally?

I love the accessibility of it. To know that when I am at work I can now access any website that I may have bookmarked for a later date is awesome. We can't control when we come across something interesting and now we dont' have to wait until we get home - we can bookmark it right away. I had sent an email with a link about cyberbullying to our technology support person recently. I received an email from him to let me know that I had forgot to add the link. I was at work at the time and had to wait to go home to access it from the bookmarks on my computer. If I had saved it to one of the social bookmarking sites, well you know what would of happened.

I also appreciate the fact that once you have a topic you are searching (for example Peru), not only will you have the bookmarks that you have saved but you will now have access to sites others have used as well. (Here is the social part.) As we come closer to our months of travel in South America, this aspect of social bookmarking will come in very handy. "Suddenly, it's easy to find all sorts of other people who have the same interests or passions as you do. And in doing so, you're creating your own community of researchers that is gathering relevant information for you. (Richardson, W., 2009, p. 89) This has huge benefits. "Social bookmarking sites provide a means for individuals to save their bookmarks and share them with a community of others. The advantage in using social bookmarking sites is the human collaboration involved in the searching framework." (Teaching Today, 2007)

There are some downsides to this tool as well. First, you have to use it. You have to get into the habit of saving your bookmarks and then going and checking them out. Secondly, you have to remember what tags you applied to your websites. If you are not consistent or use general enough terms, then it may be difficult finding exactly what you are looking for, especially if you are a prolific bookmarker. I find myself trying to use at least three tags so I have a better chance of finding the page again.

How Will I Use This Professionally
There are many benefits to be found by using social bookmarking in the classroom. Students actually have a place to store sites they find useful to their topic. Teachers can set up groups for students to use and share together using Diigo. "If a student or teacher searches for information on a topic, a social bookmarking site like Del.icio.us or Diigo provides links to sites that other people have found valuable. These sites are not always the most popular, but often they are much more valuable." (Teaching Today, 2007) Using the group bookmarking system, you can gather websites that anyone in the group can access - a wonderful way to work collaboratively with teachers.

Here are some other suggestions from Teaching Today on how to use social bookmarking in the classroom.

1. Students and teachers can move from one computer to another and still have full access to their bookmarks.
2.Students can share their bookmarks with their classmates. Students and teachers can also share collections of bookmarks they have found to be worthwhile.
3.Social bookmarking sites can also help students to quickly find links to important current events and historical events. Some bookmarking sites allow students to subscribe to news feeds on a particular subject of interest. They can then go daily to this site to find the most current news on the subject.

In a school library setting, social bookmarking can be a quick way for library media specialists to create and keep an updated Web pathfinder, without any knowledge of HTML or Web programming needed. Students working in collaborative groups will also find it useful to track one another's Web resources via these public pages. (Fontichiaro, K., 2008)

This may not be the tool for everyone but I am liking the possibilities it offers.


References

Bell, Mary Ann. (2009, September). Playing tag is good for you! MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 16(5), 40-42. Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.

Educause Learning Initiative. (2005). 7 things you should know about... social bookmarking. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

Fontichiaro, Kristin. (2008, May). Using social bookmarking to organize the web. School Library Media Activities Monthly, 24(9), 27-28. Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.

Hargadon, Steve. (2007). Cool tools: best of social bookmarking. Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/ca6505695.html?q=cool+tools%3A+best+of+social+bookmarking

Richardson, Will. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Crowin Press: Thousand Oaks, California.

Teaching Today. (2007). Social bookmarking. Retrieved from http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/social-bookmarking

My Diigo Tags