Social Bookmarking Podcast. Listen to the latest episode below.
Social Bookmarking is something that is moving from Web developers to educators. This trend is leading us toward social bookmarking as a way to connect not only faculty to each other but faculty to their students. Here are a few ways it is being used today:
- Faculty to Student: A few members of the Psychology department decided that they would begin using social bookmarking. They attended a faculty workshop that helped them get a grasp on what social bookmarking is. After deciding on how to use it, they put together sites for themselves as well as the department. The value was to be able to push students to a comprehensive listing of bookmarks for all of their courses. They tagged the sites with course numbers to enable students to drill down to the links that would pertain to their particular area. This was the beginning of connecting faculty to student.
- Faculty to Faculty: This application allows faculty within the department to not only add tags to the departmental account with their names as tags, but also their own personal social bookmarking account. This allows faculty to connect with other faculty to leverage external and internal resources more efficiently. Faculty working on their terminal degrees also use this application to keep track of all of their research as well as to connect with their instructors. This proves to be an extremely valuable asset.
- Case Study: Learning Center: An academic learning center took the social bookmarking concept and applied it in the context of empowering students with resources. They set up an account, added links and tagged them for various applications in their field. They are currently in the process of getting the site in front of students and using it as an conduit to learning resources for students.
Social bookmarking has become something that really helps connect people and, for our purposes, empowers faculty, staff, and students, toward better teaching and learning. There was some great conversation that came up with what tool to use for social bookmarking. Google has just come out with one. There is a social bookmarking tool within Blackboard. However, I believe faculty are leaning more towards delicious. Having their bookmarks “outside” has advantages and disadvantages. However, we’re seeing that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.What applications of social bookmarking are you using? Feel free to post your applications of social bookmarking below. Let’s share our ideas together.