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In researching information about social bookmarking it appears that this is quite a fast growing part of the internet. There are different sites that a person can use to bookmark his or her favorite sites. Muir (2005) suggests that social bookmarking is a personal web site where you can store and categorize your bookmarks. The site http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/socialbookmarking/index.htm, further explains that social bookmarking uses a user generated labeling system that has become known as a folksonomy. According to this site, a folksonomy is where users create the labels. These labels are also called tags on the social bookmarking sites. Jackson (2006) states:
Instead of individually saving the site in a variety of folders, you just type a few keywords called tags (Langston Hughes, alliteration, Black History, metaphor, rubric, and so on.), and your sites are organized automatically with sites saved by other users, using those same keywords.
You even can see a list of your saved bookmarks, not just by alphabetical order, but also by how often you use a given tag. So, you know at a glance that you already have a lot of information on World War II, but not nearly as much on the Spanish-American War. Thus you benefit from the research of others, while having a far more dynamic and helpful system of organization.
Education is an area that can benefit greatly from the use of social bookmarking. Not only can teachers benefit, so can students. In regards to teachers, the Department of Education suggests that teachers could set up an account for each class and make the URL available to the class, create a collaborative account, sharing the username and password with the class or use specific tags to direct individual students to specific readings or resources. Muir (2005) also weighs in on teachers using social bookmarking, by suggesting that teachers use it for professional research, book recommendations, or placing web links on their school web page. As far as students are concerned, Muir also gives suggestions in how they may use social bookmarking. These possibilities are: web sites are used for student research or projects, students can find resources at home and access them at school, share what they are reading or view what their peers are reading on the web.
The sites researched and reviewed provided a better understanding of social bookmarking for a novice user. These three sites also enabled the reader to get a grasp on how this new phenomenon could be used in education, by teachers and students alike.
References
Department of Education. (n.d.). Social Bookmarking. Retrieved November 6, 2009, from http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/socialbookmarking/index.htm
Jackson, L. (April 2006). Sites to See: Social Bookmarking. Retrieved November 6, 2009 from http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml
Muir, D. (October, 2005). Simply Del.icio.us Online Social Bookmarking, or: Tagging for Teaching. Retrieved November 2, 2009, from http://personal.strath.ac.uk/d.d.muir/Delicious1_2.pdf
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