Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking

I have been a member of social networking since 2005 when I started back to college and found Facebook was how students communicated to each other.  I am definitely of the 1 billion online users, since that day, my husband would say I am addicted to social media (Richardson, 2010, pg.89).  I am a member of most social media sites, so I can understand it being overwhelming of where to go for what and where to put items out when.  I have moved to a mind shift of using these tools in my classroom.  Along with Edmodo, I have a class Twitter page which I use for class updates or retweeting technology ideas with my peers or following humanitarian organizations such as Girls Up. 

However, social bookmarking is somewhat new to me.  I have used a tool called Symbaloo.  I have found this site to be useful to store my bookmarks of websites.  Symbaloo is a better organization tool and easier to use than standard bookmarks.  Within the site, I have different pages based upon a topic and it is set up as my home page and I have it as an app on my phone.  I can access my bookmarks everywhere.   I have even created webquest page using Symbaloo.  The reason I like this tool is the format.  Symbaloo is laid out like an iPhone, the bookmarks look like apps on a phone.  I really prefer this visual.

When I looked through Diigo and Delicious, I found the sites to just look like any other web site.  I do like the usefulness of these tools in research.  When tagging a topic or making a list in these sites it makes research easier for someone to find material they need or to be continually updated with new information.  Joining these sites’ communities allows user to share ideas on topics with others.  This new idea of “folksonomy” (collaborating on-line) allows more information to be shared (Robinson, pg. 91).  We are no longer limited to the materials in a library or what has been catalogued in a media center site.  While these two tools are great for research with the abilities to annotate, highlight, store and collaborate, I believe I like to receive and share information in a different format.  As far as a news aggregator I love the shortest of Twitter where I can get a short bit of information and dig deeper if I want to know more or a more visual layout with an application such as Flipbook.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.