Social Bookmarking Part 2

Using del.icio.us

Well I signed up for a del.icio.us account last week and I have found the basic set up quite easy and user friendly. I was able to install the icons into my web browser and had no problems accessing it. I started using it mainly this weekend. I didn’t have a lot of time during the week to play around with it, but I was able to spend some time on the weekend.

I have been planning a trip, with my cousin, to Britain in 2010. It has been a life-long dream of mine to go and see the sites of Britain. I am a huge history buff and I have been dying to see some of the historical sites. Both my cousin and I are HUGE Jane Austen fans- of both the books and the films, so we also want to see a bit of that. We were speaking on the phone on the weekend and it occurred to me that del.icio.us would be a great tool to use when planning this particular trip! In fact it was one of the suggestions on the help page. We were able to go to various web sites and the ones that were interesting to us we could tag in del.icio.us. I wasn’t able to spend as much time looking at my trip stuff, as I do have other things to get to- like this blog- but I did manage to get four or five good sites on my account.
I was also able to find a couple of teacher-librarian sites through a search on del.icio.us and I tagged a few of those as well.

I must confess that I have not had as much time as I would like to have to look and play around with all of the features, but I plan to in the future. I tried to organize the tags into groups, but I think that I did it wrong- I think that I should have only used one-word tags for my trip website to make it easier. I also have not been able to subscribe to any networks or other accounts. Maybe I will look on my classmates’ blogs and try to subscribe to a few of theirs. My only complaint with this tool is that it does try and help people out with instructions, but it seems a bit complicated and time consuming. I do intend to go back and have a look at the help section and see what I can find out, but all in good time. Maybe I’m just a bit thick to figure this one out!!

Implications for Teaching:

I do see myself using this tool as both a t-l and as a class room teacher. I would like to set up a different account as a teacher though, and have one for strictly personal purposes and professional purposes. I am not comfortable with students having access to my personal spaces on the internet- I never have been- maybe that is just me, but I don’t feel the need to share all of my plans and business with staff and students. I will create an account that staff and students can access and I will place the link on my resource centre website.

I have many sites that I use in my classroom that would help my students with their work. Some of the sites have tutorials, practice assignments and pictures or videos of things that could help them with their understanding of particular concepts. As I’ve said in earlier postings, I usually end up using a projector to show these sites and it would be quite handy to have the students be able to go to a lab or at home and look at these sites.

I would also like to see my students creating their own accounts and tagging their own sites. While I was tagging my sites for my trip, I thought it would be a great assignment for students to create their own accounts that tagged sites they found interesting or helpful and to explain in the tag why they wanted to save the site. I’m not sure if it would work or not, but I would like to find out. I could use social bookmarking sites as a type of learning journal and even devote some time in class for the students to use the internet and find the sites they would like to use. The only con with this idea would be that my students are not terribly self-driven and I can foresee many, many questions of, “is this what you want us to use?” being asked.

In the December 2007 issue of Teacher-Librarian there is an article by David Loertscher (P.14-17) where he discusses the benefits of students constructing their own information spaces on the internet. (Children, teens, and the construction of information spaces). He believes that it is beneficial for students to create their own spaces, but they need us to help them organize these spaces and direct them towards learning. I was struck by the following excerpt: “For years we have built computer systems on the idea that ‘if you build it, they will come.’ Well, they came, but instead of staying, they worked around it because of their needs in social networking. Instead, we propose that: ‘If THEY build it, they will LEARN.’ Learn what? Children and teens will not only learn how to construct a learning space, but in doing so, will surround themselves with tools that will help them learn.” So, maybe instead of creating a collection of sites for my students- they could create their own collection and give it to me. Would they learn more from just reading mine or from creating their own? After being a student again, I don’t think that I would learn as much by reading about Web 2.0 tools as I would actually trying them and using them for myself! I certainly didn’t learn a lot from just reading the help section of del.icio.us. I had to actually use the tool before I found out how it works. I still don’t know how to use it completely, but I’m sure that after using the help page and making a few mistakes, I’m more likely not to forget how to use it and I’ll probably have a better understanding of del.icio.us in the end. I think that my students would gain more from creating their own bookmarks as well.

Reflections:

I am currently reading the course materials on Topic 2- Professional Development and I am struck by some of the readings. As I mentioned in the previous blog, this is the first tool that I had not used at all. I didn’t know anything about it and had to start from scratch. Many teachers that I work with don’t use computers at all and are very intimidated by it. I felt a little intimidated by the tool as well and I couldn’t help thinking that a PD session on Web 2.0 would help teachers. The link to Michigan State University’s Big 10 Ideas has a quote that sums up what I believe about learning new things, such as del.icio.us, etc. They state: “teachers are also learners, and through integration of the Internet into their classroom activities, they can broaden their experiences, connect and benefit from the experiences of other teachers, learn about new ways of teaching, and reflect on their own teaching practice.”

By posting to my blog every week I am finding that I am examining my own teaching techniques and practices in a way that I haven’t done since my undergrad days. I am re-evaluating my program and the way that I present information, create assignments and evaluate students. I think that this revelation has come because of the learning that I have had to do and the information that I am reading in this course. In the past, I have only just related my experiences, but now I find myself reflecting- without being forced to! J

I’ve gotten a bit off topic, but I’m having one of those days (and weeks). That is what professional development should do! It has been great!

That`s what I think about Social Bookarking! Katie