Social Bookmarking Creation Activity

Social Bookmarking Creation Activity

URL: http://delicious.com/weeksn

For our social bookmarking exercise, I chose Del.icio.us as it is a simple and efficient instrument to organize web pages and online resources effectively, for both personal as well as professional activities. I find the Del.icio.us site easy to use; however, I discovered that I am at the mercy of the website developers when it comes to page design. I would have preferred more flexibility in my site organization and structure.

When it comes to using this technology for teaching and learning, an obvious benefit for educator is that most bookmarking sites are free and are easy to use. Social bookmarking is a great way for educators to provide links to sites containing valuable information about a topic discussed in the classroom such as links to important current or historical events. In addition, social bookmarking is also a great way to control information and learning resources with students, as well as parents, keeping them from visiting useless sites. Students can also share their bookmarks with their classmates and have the capability of taking bookmarks saved by others and adding them to their own collection or subscribe to the lists of others.

Social bookmarking can be a positive approach to enhancing students’ learning experiences; however, a potential drawback of utilizing a social networking tool in the classroom is that since this type of resource is web-based, it requires an active Internet connection and social networks can often be blocked by school servers. Social bookmarking sites may also cause some users to experience information overload due to the significant amount of time necessary to browse through saved user links However, despite the limitations, I still view social bookmarking as one of the most helpful social software resources for educators.