Social+Bookmarking

The next step in developing our skills and experiences with Web 2.0 we are going to investigate Social Bookmarking. The reason for doing this now is that as we explore this topic and subsequent topics you will come across website that you will want to bookmark and record to visit later, so by developing these skills and establishing your account now we can record all those site you will come across.

Bookmarking
But first lets talk about [|bookmarking] - as the web has developed and people have been using [|web browsers] there has been a need to record websites you visit so that you can re-visit theme at a later time. Imagine having to either write down or copy and paste web addresses so that you can visit them later - painful and time consuming. The developers of web browsers have always recognised this issue and have subsequently built in the capacity to record the sites of interest. Generally these recording of websites have been called Bookmarks ([|Netscape], [|FireFox], [|Opera], [|Safari]) or Favorites ([|Internet Explorer]) - the problem with these bookmarks is that they were basically tied to a computer that they were bookmarked on which made it hard to share and access if you did not have a laptop or mobility. Another issue that most people either do not consider or allow for is the backing up of these bookmarks - many times I have friends that have lost their computer for whatever reason to later discover that they have also lost years and thousands of book marks they may have collected. The alternative we have today are what are called Social Bookmarks, which by their nature are available online.

Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking provides a significant change in the way bookmarks are used, especially within education and the classroom. Today we can use social bookmarking tools to record websites of interest for us, and the best thing is that these services are completed online so that you can access these resources from any computer connected to the internet.

Your bookmarks are available to:
 * Share with others
 * Have others suggest sites
 * Provide a form of storage and back up for
 * Collaborate with others by locating and sharing sites of interest

We are going to explore the Social Bookmarking using software called [|Del.icio.us].

First you need to set up a Del.icio.us account - follow the steps outlined here...

Tagging
Having set up your Del.icio.us account we need to have a quick look at Tagging...

Your tasks are:

 * Explore Del.icio.us - use my del.icio.us [|account] as a starting point.
 * How can we use Social Bookmarks in education? for Teachers, Students, Leadership, Planning, etc?
 * Find some examples of social bookmarks being used.
 * Where would you start using them?
 * What might be some of the areas we need to address when using social bookmarks with students?

Possible Uses for Social Bookmarking
Some possible uses for social bookmarks could include the following:
 * Create a set of resources that can be accessed on any computer connected to the Internet
 * Conduct research and share that research with your peers
 * Groups of students doing a classroom project sharing their bookmarks, a teacher subscribed to their rss feed to see the direction
 * of their research.
 * A teacher does a PD event with a group of teachers creates a shared del.icio.us account where teachers can post research
 * and information bookmarks that they gather throughout the year. All members continuously benefit from this shared resource.
 * Rate and review bookmarks to help other students to decide on usefulness of resources
 * Setup a group tag in order to share educational resources (IE. [|Dekita Exchange] and on this wiki in [|Geocaching for Educators])
 * Unintended learning through the discovery of resources and information shared by others through their bookmarks
 * Share links to current news items that relate to classroom discussions.
 * Examine the popularity of a web site that a student had listed and examine those who have tagged that resource in order to find new resources.
 * Share one del.icio.us account between a number of different subject specific educators or a school in order to share resources with each other.
 * Share one del.icio.us account between a large number of educators across a school district that teach in diverse settings in order to create a broad and deep set of resources.

Social bookmarking tools :: http://www.teachinghacks.com/wiki/index.php?title=Social_bookmarking_tools

Tips:

 * Bookmark everything you find interesting. Bookmarking a lot makes it easy to find your sites again.
 * Be liberal in your use of tags, but clean them up ever once in a while. No need to have ‘blog’ and ‘blogs’ in there. The way you clean up your tags is to go to the ‘Settings’ section of your account (top right corner), then under the Tag section you can rename, delete or bundle tags.
 * Bundle your tags, if you’ve got lots of links tagged with ’teaching' you can bundle them all together..
 * Explore other users by following their links so you can check out other users’ lists.
 * To check out the latest Tags to help you find what you are after go to: http://del.icio.us/tag/

Create a Network
A powerful feature of Del.icio.us is the capacity to create a network of users to share sites with and collaborate in the search for online resources. Add people to your network and suggest sites to your network.


 * Your task** is to work out how to add others to your network - my user ID in Del.icio.us is: itmadesimple add me to start with.

Social Bookmarking Sites

 * 1) [|Ambedo] : tag search engines
 * 2) [|BlinkList] : social bookmarking
 * 3) [|Blogmarks] : social bookmarking
 * 4) [|Blummy] : multiple bookmarklet tool
 * 5) [|Bmaccess] : social bookmarking service
 * 6) [|BuddyMarks] : social bookmarking
 * 7) [|Cloudalicious] : del.icio.us cloud tag history for links/sites
 * 8) [|CommonTimes] : social bookmarking for news
 * 9) [|Connotea] : social bookmarking for researchers and clinicians
 * 10) [|del.icio.us] : social bookmarking
 * 11) [|Diigo] : social bookmarking with annotation
 * 12) [|Dogear] : bookmarking tool
 * 13) [|FeedButler] : web-based feed reader; bookmarking
 * 14) [|feedmarker] : rss aggregator and bookmarks manager
 * 15) [|Furl] : social bookmarking
 * 16) [|Hanzo] : social bookmarking and archiving
 * 17) [|Hyperlinkomatic] : social bookmark manager
 * 18) [|Icio] : social bookmarking
 * 19) [|IndiaGram] : social bookmarking
 * 20) [|Jeteye] : social info sharing
 * 21) [|Jots] : social bookmarking
 * 22) [|Kaboodle] : social info sharing
 * 23) [|KopiKol] : social bookmarking
 * 24) [|LiveMarks] : live del.icio.us additions
 * 25) [|LookLater] : private bookmarking and archiving
 * 26) [|Lookmarks] : social bookmarking service
 * 27) [|ma.gnolia] : social bookmarking service
 * 28) [|MyLinkVault] : social bookmarking
 * 29) [|Mystickies] : add sticky informational notes on web pages
 * 30) [|Nextaris] : social bookmarking, networking, blogging
 * 31) [|OnlyWire] : simultaneous bookmarking tool
 * 32) [|Philoi] : social bookmarking service
 * 33) [|RawSugar] : online bookmarking
 * 34) [|RecommendIt] : social bookmarks recommnedations
 * 35) [|Shadows] : social bookmarking
 * 36) [|Simpy] : social bookmarking
 * 37) [|Spurl] : social bookmarking
 * 38) [|StumbleUpon] : social bookmarking / web discovery tool
 * 39) [|Tagground] : social bookmarking search
 * 40) [|ToRead] : email-based bookmarking service
 * 41) [|Unalog] : social bookmarking
 * 42) [|Yahoo! My Web 2.0] : social bookmarking
 * 43) [|Yoono] : social bookmarking software


 * More Information**

For you next Professional Development activity why not use [|ITmadeSimple]
 * Web**: [|http://www.itmadesimple.com]
 * Email**: tony@itmadesimple.com
 * Del.icio.us**: http://del.icio.us/itmadesimple
 * Blog** : http://itmadesimple.typepad.com/learning_thinking_playing/
 * Flickr**: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10598820@N05