Social Bookmarking

There are several theoretical frameworks from which to approach social bookmarking such as: Gredler (1997) Social Context for Learning; Siemens (2004) Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Gredler argues that the nature of the learner’s social interaction with knowledgeable people is what is important in acquiring social meaning from important symbol systems. Siemens makes the argument that most of the learning we will need and acquire in the future will not be formal education but rather informal learning. This learning will occur in various ways such as “through communities of practice, personal networks, and through completion of work-related tasks” (¶ 4).

Social bookmarking challenges our prevailing ways of knowing and behaving as it moves away from individual learning and knowledge discovery to a broader social learning context. Through joining, and or creating, connected communities the learner becomes a part of something greater that can transcend the bindings of formal education and move to the realm of life-long learning.

There are number of ways that social bookmarking can be used in education. Teachers can organize lists of resources that they want students to read, watch, or listen to, as the bookmarks can be of anything that is retrievable on the Internet (Rosenfeld, 2008). There are several online tools or add-ons for browsers that allow one to tag, store and organize bookmarks over the Internet. Tools such as Del.icio.us, Diigo, Furl, and Technorati, have become quite popular, but the list is growing. Watch lists of topics can be created and through RSS, discussed elsewhere, the learner can be notified when someone has updated a site, bookmarked, or tagged the topic being followed. This can save a lot of time repeatedly going back to sites to check and see if there is anything new. If a unique tag is created for use by a learning group, it is easy for the group to locate all the resources the group has found through this tag (Dalsgaard, 2006). This could be used in Gredler’s social context for learning approach where a class or group of individuals, working on a topic, use social bookmark tags to alert the others of new information, or to create a comprehensive list of resources available on the topic.

There is also opportunity to add one’s own comments on the nature of the resource being tagged this allows for a sharing of opinion of the resource and the creation of a dialogue. As more people use social bookmarking to mark information they come across on the Internet the ability of the tool to help learners become a part of the learning community also grows. Siemens in his conclusion to his 2004 article says, “Connectivism presents a model of learning that acknowledges the tectonic shifts in society where learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity” (p. 8). Social bookmarking may be one of those external, collective activities of learning.

Links

Del.icio.us, http://del.icio.us

Diigo, http://www.diigo.com

Furl, http://www.furl.net

Yahoo!Buzz, http://www.buzz.yahoo.com

Technorati, http://www.technorati.com/

Stumbleupon, http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://www.teachinghacks.com/wiki/index.php?title=Social_bookmarking_tools Ideas for how it can be used in the classroom

References

Dalsgaard, C. (2006). Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems. Retrieved January 30, 2009, from http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2006/Christian_Dalsgaard.htm

Gredler, M. (1997). Social Context for Learning. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Social_Constructivism

Rosenfeld, E. (2008). Useful Web 2.0 tools for teachers and Students, Teacher Librarian, 35(4), 72.

Siemens, G., (2004). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Retrieved February 10, 2009, from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

Joe