3. Social Bookmarking

Diigo

Note that the links posted on this page are generated by Diigo, and they change every time a new link is posted.

In the past, I had experimented with social bookmarking through www.Delicious.com, but I found that I did not need to have my bookmarks online. The sites that I regularly visited were already saved in my browser, and I used only one laptop computer for all my needs and I am quite capable of finding what I need with an effective keyword search. In his chapter entitled The Social Web: Learning Together, Richardson makes the claim that by simply tagging a webpage of "50 best free software programs" with the tags "education" "free" "software", it would somehow make your life easier. (Richardson, p. 89) That was not my experience with online bookmarking, and in fact, if I were to visit such a page, it would still be necessary to navigate through the fifty items to find what I needed.

In addition, for information sites, finding an answer has always been as simple as remembering the organization name (UBC, Safeway, ULS) and the domain extension (com, net, ca, bc.ca etc.). For something with a non-standard URL, it is usually easy to google the name, and there it is on the first page of results. For those reasons, I abandoned my Delicious account.

Changes:
I still consistently use only one computer, and access all bookmarks through the browser's (safari) bookmarks. However, I have recently begun to regularly follow Twitter, and have noticed that Social Bookmarking has become much more social. Diigo (www.Diigo.com) now seems to be the most popular choice for a number of reasons.

From Diigo.com - 

Main Features - What can this tool do?
Ever since it was first released, Diigo has been used as an online bookmarking tool, but it is now a way to simplify, organize, share, discuss and access all sorts of information.

Saving bookmarks: ...in the cloud - of course! With a browser add-on, it is a simple matter to bookmark a page, add tags (see below - "tagging") and add an annotation. At any time, one can also go back and edit the annotation, add or delete tags, or highlight/annotate the actual page. (see below under "annotating pages").

Tagging: instead of folders of bookmarks, Diigo uses "tags" (gmail allows the user to do this with messages). For example, one need only click on the word "french" to find all links tagged with "French". In addition, because some of my links come via Twitter, it is also easy to click on "edchat" to see all links that have appeared in tweets with that hashtag. The following is an embedded list of my Diigo Tags. You may wonder why there are so many Twitter Hashtag words (edchat, elearning, edtech, ukedchat). That is because I have linked my Twitter account with Diigo, and all links from my Twitter feed are automatically added to Diigo! I find that this is one way to deal more effectively with the large amount of information that I receive every day.

My Diigo Tags

Annotating pages: I am not sure how valuable this will be if few of my colleagues actually participate, but Diigo allows posting of sticky notes and highlighting of text live on websites. This means that my highlights and notes will always be there when I visit the page, and I may make them visible to other Diigo users (I can make the annotations public or private).

Considering this in the context of a collaborative unit with a colleague, this feature would allow easier sharing of information. Of course, one can always talk to the colleague about a good online resource, send an email... but if you can create a Diigo bookmark, annotate the page, the colleague can immediately see the value of the page. In addition, it is possible to share only certain tags... (below is a "tagroll" of only the bookmarks tagged "elearning", tweeted with the #elearning hashtag...

#elearning links

Groups: Another way to share only certain links would be by creating a group. For the purpose of sharing with my colleagues who take part in the Lord Byng Secondary School Technology inquiry group, I have created a group called byngtech. That group has its own page! I know that the widget says "join now", but you can view the links without joining by clicking there...



Implications for teachers - Why is it important?
The social aspect of social bookmarking is the most important new discovery for me. I completely agree with Richardson's comment that it is the collaborative aspect that is the best part. (Richardson p. 93) Within several minutes of sharing my Diigo group with a colleague, the group suddenly began to develop and I now understand Diigo's true value. She shared to our group a Blog post called "Ten Sites Supporting iPads In Education… A Post Of Resources!" which is one major topic of discussion in our group. She also shared a link to Zotero (a works cited tool), which is an excellent add-on for Firefox. She had tagged it "APA", but I added a tag for "MLA" and also made a comment.

Also from Richardson's commentary, an excellent use of this tool for formative evaluation of work such as a student's blog. He cites one class in Seoul, Korea where the teacher and all students are members of a group. The teacher highlights passages and adds annotations to their work. (Richardson, p. 95). It is similar to my use of Moodle for formative evaluation - Students submit work online - I highlight and comment on that submission - they make changes and corrections ... resubmit - I highlight and comment... etc.) There is no paper involved, and students are able to greatly improve their writing (instead of receiving a final mark and simply tossing the paper).