Traci Gardner, known as "tengrrl" on most networks, writes lesson plans, classroom resources, and professional development materials for English language arts and college composition teachers. She is the author of Designing Writing Assignments, a contributing editor to the NCTE INBOX Blog, and the editor of Engaging Media-Savvy Students Topical Resource Kit.
Using Social Bookmarking to Organize Your Links
posted: 6.18.09 by Traci GardnerWhen you visit a Web site you want to return to, you can add a bookmark in your Web browser that saves the page address for later. Some tools (like Xmarks, formerly Foxmarks) even allow you to synchronize your bookmarks across computers. Those bookmark synchronizer tools are great for keeping the bookmarks in your browser at home identical to the ones on your machine at work.
The shortcoming of these synchronizers is that they are personal tools. They’re meant to be used by one person to organize and simplify bookmarks on the computers that he or she uses personally. What do you do when you want to share your bookmarks with other people or use them when you’re not at your own computer? Social bookmarking is the answer.
Social bookmarking sites, like Delicious, save your bookmarks online, so that you can access them just by visiting a Web page. Take a look at High School Bits blogger Jodi Rice’s collection of bookmarks. At first it may not be obvious why they’re useful. What you’ll see on her page is a list of her most recent additions to the collection.
The good stuff is on the right side of the screen, under the Tags header. When you add bookmarks to your collection, you can also add tags (or keywords) that help you identify them and organize them. Click on the Hamlet tag, for instance, and you’ll find 37 links to pages that you can use to teach the play.
If you’re not finding what you’re looking for in Rice’s collection, try one of these:
- Drew Loewe’s bookmarks on teaching, Web design, and new media
- Bradley Dilger’s bookmarks for his research projects and teaching
- Quinn Warnick’s tech communication bookmarks
What each of those collections has in common is that it organizes links based on the keywords that the person can use later to find information.
If you’re not sold on their usefulness, look at Bradley Dilger’s reading schedule for his class, and you’ll see that the links to the readings are actually links to his Delicious bookmarks. Social bookmarking sites are perfect for this kind of task, and all you have to do is add the links and tags. No need to compose your own web page for the links you want to share with classes. Let the site do the work for you.
Delicious is just one of the social bookmarking sites available. There are many others out there you might try, like Diigo and Digg. No matter which one you choose, you’ll find that these sites are a useful way to make all those must-see Web pages you’ve saved links for available to anyone simply.
To learn more about Delicious, check out the resources on The Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social Bookmarking, which has links to tutorials and other useful resources. You’ll have your collection set up in no time!
Tags: bookmarking
Categories: Collaboration, Social Networking, Web 2.0
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Read All Traci Gardner
July 1st, 2009 at 11:15 am
Thanks for the nod, Traci. One thing I have done that makes my life a lot easier in terms of sharing resources with colleagues is to include a link to my Delicious site in my email signature. When I want to direct people to one of my bookmarks, I don’t have to provide the actual bookmark — I just direct them to the page itself and they can find what they need. This strategy has been extremely useful to me in my roles as team leader and department head, allowing me to refer colleagues to common resources and keeping them in one place that’s easily accessible to everyone no matter where they are.
You’ve given me an idea for a more extensive post about how I use social bookmarking in my classroom, mentoring other teachers, and organizing my materials. Look for it in the next little while on my blog.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:58 am
[...] response to a post by Bedford Bits’ Traci Gardner about social bookmarking (in which she makes reference to my Delicious.com bookmarks), I responded that I would discuss my [...]
November 19th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
[...] build community resources, like a student-assembled collection of links, I’d still recommend a social bookmarking tool like Delicious or Diigo, but for the collections that you create and find yourself reusing, Bit.ly [...]
December 17th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
[...] Tryon wrote about the role Delicious played in research for his book. Traci Gardner pointed to her roundup of several other applications for Delicious, including some of my use in courses. (I hadn’t [...]