MANAGING ICT MANAGING ICT
The internet
is essential
to teachers’
working lives,
Making
but how do you keep
track of all the relevant
information out there?
Teacher Kerry Turner your
introduces the concept of
social bookmarking
N OCTOBER 2007, Mitchell Kapor, founder
I
of the Lotus Corporation, wrote: “Getting
information off the internet is like taking a
mark
drink from a fire hydrant.”
How very true. With so many people
writing, viewing, reviewing and participating
on the web, teachers are finding it even
harder to access and assess relevance and accuracy
“out there”.
Google searches produce instant and capacious
results, sometimes too time-consuming to process and
compare. Yet even in the midst of this information
overload, the internet is still an essential tool we choose
to use in keeping up-to-date with our interests and
occupations.
Fortunately, a number of different types of social
bookmarking websites and tools have been recently
updated, and have made the business of finding
relevant information on the internet considerably
less arduous.
How is this possible? In essence, social bookmarking
is the practice of saving your internet “favourites” or
“bookmarks” to a public website.
Most teachers will have always saved bookmarks
to
Sec
their
Ed
loc
aug
al com
08:Layout
puter, either
1
at h
28/08/2008
ome or on a sch
15:14
ool
networked computer. The problem with this is that
those two sets of bookmarks are in separate places.
Page 1
Social bookmarking on a website allows bookmarks to
be accessed from home and at work, or from any place Clicking on the number will bring up a list of all
Introducing
where you can connect to the internet. the people who have bookmarked and tagged the link.
,the perfectclassroom tool
Instead of simply saving the web address of the site Glancing at their keyword tags, you can quickly see
you like and having to create your own named folder in who has similar search tastes or interests. This means
order to find it, social bookmarks allow the creation of that teachers can find each other and share resources.
multiple user-defined tags, or keywords, through which This again is simple to do; I discovered a teacher
Neo 2 has allthefeaturesthatusershavecome NEO 2s comewith abuilt-in voting and
you can access that link. whose thinking I really liked, I investigated her tags
toknowand loveabout Neo,thesimple,robust assessment tool, wireless printing
Tagging is automatically suggested by the and found she had done masses of research on topics
and highlypracticalwritingandclassroomtool functionality as standardand provides
bookmarking website, so it is quick and easy to display I was keen to follow up on, and others that I had not
designed specifically withschoolinmind. compatibility with Accelerated Reader
TM
popular tags for your weblinks. At this level, by merely even thought about.
saving URLs to a single area to reuse at a later date, I added her username to my network and now
software. only the basics of the social bookmarking concept are regularly look at her bookmarks to keep myself
Neo 2 includes ahostof new additions that
covered. up-to-date. Yet, you do not have to add the person
have been specially requested by teachers. NEO 2 has nootherdistractions meaningthat
The word “social” in social bookmarking indicates to your network, you can save a weblink you like
that anyone, unless you have bookmarked the URL without them ever knowing you have admired their
minds arefocused on writingand nothing else.
(or set your username) as “private”, can see what you hard work.
The NEO 2 features innovative radiofrequency have saved. Even though it might appear to be a one-way
wireless technology. Thismeansthatall Contact us tofindout more.
Instead of setting off alarm bells over issues of process, most teachers are delighted to find themselves
privacy invasion, teachers will find that this is the with a list of “fans” and are often fans of other
real beauty of social bookmarking. It is an excellent Delicious users too. I would bet my hat that any teacher
community and collaboration tool. who starts a social bookmarking account will very soon
If I have found something useful for education and begin creating a formidable set of tagged links of their
teaching, I have probably put in many hours searching own to share.
and evaluating those internet links and the material, and Any concerns that sharing and collaborating with
this is work that my colleagues will not have to do. others might be harmful to privacy should be quieted
The one I have found particularly useful of late is by the fact that besides setting bookmarks to “private”,
“Delicious”. Since its purchase by Yahoo at the end you can delete a person from your network whenever
of 2005 and a new look and complete re-write of the you choose.
code in September 2007, Delicious is quickly being Although your account will have an inbox, it is not
recognised as a quality personal, and teaching and an email account and is not visible to other users. Its
learning resource. main purpose is to receive bookmarks that others have
It is free, and getting on board is very simple; thought would be of use to you. When a bookmark is
sign up with a username, password and email, install tagged with for a specific user, only that user will be
“bookmarklets” in your links bar and you can begin to able to view the tag, even if the bookmark is a public
add bookmarks. one.
I like Delicious for many reasons. It sorts my We encourage our students to have Delicious
bookmarks for me and I do not have to think too hard accounts and teach them how to keep their personal
when I tag my searches. I keep a blog for teaching A links and bookmarks to each other private.
level students and regularly refer them to my tags on Teachers might also want to try out “Furl” as
Delicious. These links include web pages, videos, and a social bookmarking site. Unlike Delicious, which
audio tutorials that I have scoured the internet for. relies on the weblink to be active, Furl allows you to
Students find them by the tags I have listed – save a copy of the web page even if it is moved or
security, computer misuse, expert systems, and so on. I deleted. “Digg” and “StumbleUpon” are also quite fun,
store many others for myself – pedagogy, web 2.0, and allowing users to rate by popularity any internet items
wordpress, for example. they deem noteworthy. SecEd
Delicious also sorts tags by date, which is a very
useful feature. Most importantly, it allows me to • Kerry Turner has been head of ICT at Wolverhampton
explore a tag which I have created by clicking on the Grammar School for eight years.
“popular” and “recent” tabs. This enables viewing of
For moreinformationgo to www.alphasmart.co.uk
all other websites tagged by other Delicious users with
Further information
the same keyword, ensuring just what it says on the tin • Delicious: www.delicious.com
TM
Email:UK-info@alphasmart.co.uk
– up-to-the-minute and popular material. • Furl: www.furl.net
The site also enables a society of sharing and • Digg: www.digg.com
collaborating. When bookmarking a website to • StumbleUpon: www.stumbleupon.com
adivision ofRenaissanceLearning
tm
FREEphone: 08009174447
Delicious, its listing indicates to the right of the link how • Check our Kerry’s Delicious listing at
many other people have bookmarked that website. http://delicious.com/kerryturner
10 SecEd • November 13 2008
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20