The World of Social Bookmarking

Like some of my fellow classmates, I had absolutely no idea what social bookmarking meant until this week's lesson. I quickly learned what a fun and useful tool it is. Over the next couple of paragraphs, I will share my thoughts and experiences with social bookmarking from the past week. 

Although the information in our textbook on social bookmarking is quite good, and most search engines provide ample links to information on the topic, I found the most useful tool this week to be the link Professor Morriss provided to the YouTube video tutorial for delicious. In just under three and a half minutes, this video taught me all I needed to know about what a social bookmarking site is and how it works. 

For me, the most compelling reason to use a social bookmarking site is to get organized and reduce clutter. Although Safari calls my favorite websites "bookmarks", this feature on my web browser is nothing like the bookmarking I was able to set up with delicious. My bookmarks with Safari have become so disorganized because of the amount of them, I have no idea what I have stored, let alone how to find anything I have not used in a while. The concept of keywords and tags is a major step forward in organization. I also like the idea of sharing my bookmarks with colleagues and friends. I can certainly see the benefits of using a social bookmarking website and an educator, particularly when teaching an Internet based or distance education class.

After briefly looking at all of the links to social bookmarking sites provided to us by Professor Morriss, I decided on delicious. However, delicious was not my first choice. As I mentioned last week in relation to blogs, I like things to be simple. The site that caught my attention first was givealink.org. It appeared as if setting up a social bookmarking account would be easy and fast. But once I read a little further, I found that there had been some reported compatibility problems for Mac users. Since I use a Mac, I passed on this site and kept looking until I decided on delicious. Theirs was quite easy to set up, and I was busy bookmarking in no time at all.

Most of my bookmarks deal with news, politics, or social organizations. I wish I could direct my classmates to all kinds of interesting sites that explain my hobbies and interests. Instead, most of my sites are either predictable or boring. My delicious link can be found on my class wiki page. 

I found this to be a fun and valuable week of learning. Although I probably will not make this claim about every new Internet tool we learn about in this class, social bookmarking is one tool I will continue to use beyond LBED-4460! 

Some Thoughts From John Lennon...

I just found a great article written by John F. Lennon (not the Beatle) on his experiences with using blogs as part of the college classroom. Although he approaches the use of a blog as a tool to enhance the learning experience of the traditional classroom environment, his theories can be applied to distance learning as well. Lennon declares that a blog is a useful tool in keeping a discussion going. It allows students to post their ideas as soon as they are generated as opposed to waiting until the next classroom session. He even makes a comparison between Blackboard threaded discussions vs. blogs, indicating that he strongly prefers a blog. If you have time, read this article. I found it to be quite informative. 

http://www.lehigh.edu/~inllnote/issues/issue4/Blogging.htm

As some of my fellow classmates have already stated, setting up a blog was fairly easy. I looked at all of the blogs that Professor Morriss included within the blog assignment page. In the end, I decided on blogger.com because it appeared to be the most user-friendly. When I clicked on the link, it took me right to the setup process and even provided a preview. I am certain that the other sites are good as well, but I'm a Mac kinda guy and like things to be really simple whenever possible!

Based upon the research and writings of Richardson, Davi, Frydenberg, and Guiati, it is clear that blogs have found their way into the virtual classroom. When used as a class portal, a blog can offer more features than a traditional commercial course management system such as Blackboard. A blog provides a student with more options to personalize their space, is more flexible than the traditional threaded discussion, and expands opportunities for collaboration. 

As a labor education major, I am certain that the experience and skills I gain from using this blog will aid me in the future. 

References

Davi, Angelique, and Mark Frydenberg, and Girish J. Gulait. (September 2007). Blogging Across the Disciplines: Integrating Technology to Enhance Liberal Learning. http://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no3/frydenberg.htm

Richardson, Will. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. 2009. 

I've Created A Blog!

Greetings everyone! If you are able to read this entry, then I have successfully created my blog. Tonight, I'm going to work on creating a link to my blog from our wiki. I will complete this assignment by commenting on the educational or collaborative value of blogs tomorrow with my next entry. See you soon!