Pattyjane’s Weblog

This week, I became aware of social bookmarking in a big way starting with reading the article you sent us on Social Bookmarking. Later I followed the links and read on to get more information on this digital tool and develop my understanding. After that, I started quite a nice long list of special web sites I’ve saved on my del.icio.us account. It’s a big relief already to know that all I have to do is go to my delicious page and find my most used or favorite sites. Now I don’t have to remember the address verbatim and I can access the sites from any computer, not just my computer at home or at work. I no longer have to rely on bookmarks to save a favorite site at a particular computer. Instead of using my computer browser, I am using a web based service I can access from anywhere. It’s so much more convenient.

So now, instead of saving a site in a variety of folders, I know I can type a keyword (tag) and that is how my sites will come up–already organized and ready to use. Now the whole tag tool is beginning to make more sense to me. Also, as an aside, I’m getting a kick out of watching my tag cloud develop. I’m noticing which tags are largest based on how many sites I have tagged with that keyword. It’s like watching my identity formation! I can see at a glance what really interests me the most–sort of like it’s a projection of my professional self which is fun to check out. Also, I’m beginning to realize that may be I might need to look into other sites as sources for some subjects I have less web resources on, like science. It’s also interesting to note how many other people posted that site. It let’s me know which ones are the most popular to use. The next step for me will be to perhaps subscribe to others’ lists.

The other day, I spent the afternoon with my 5th grade colleagues, talking about assessment. From them I learned about a bunch of sites I was easily able to add to my delicious social bookmarking site that I could use for assessments. Now I’ll always have those as a reference instead of forgetting about them!

I spent the weekend with my daughter at her college in Baltimore and for the first time I took my lap top with me and did some work while I was there. At first it wouldn’t work because it took a while for me to get registered with her college’s system. So I used her lap top and was still able to transfer those web pages to my delicious account. That’s so much easier.

The same will hopefully be true for my students. Right now, they have a computer assigned to them in the lab that they are suppose to use. Stored on it are their bookmarks. Though, someone could easily erase them, or from another location they won’t be able to use that source unless they remember the URL. If students start doing social bookmarking instead, their favorites will be available anytime. In addition, if they are working on a project with other students they will share information and have access to it using social bookmarking.