The clearest and most delightful use of social bookmarking that I've found is its ability for to help me keep track of the resources I find in the course of my surfing. It makes it so easy to store and organize data - just a click on the toolbar and a few typed words, and I never have to wonder where I saw that excellent article, or that great blog with all the amazing links.
Additionally, as with movie or book reviewers I've come to trust, there are other taggers who's taste in websites I appreciate, who's tags I check on to see if they've updated. I don't really check the most popular tags, though I've heard that some people do, I find it's more useful to me to follow people who are interested in the same things that I am.
I took a class in interactive narrative last semester, and we used social bookmarking in a cooperative project. It was an extremely creative use of the medium, and it was fun and inspiring. I'd definitely use it with a class. All the students started on the same website, and bookmarked an image. Then they had to surf, by direct linking, to another website and chose an image there to bookmark, and so on, until there were 30 bookmarks. Those 30 were given to a fellow student, and that student had to create a narrative, written or visual, from the bookmarked images. My images are under the tag 251 project, and my partner, Spencer Hargiss, created the most amazingly funny video from them. I will post it here, if I can get his permission.
My question would be, in what other ways could one use social bookmarking in lesson plans? I'm trying to think of ideas that are unexpected and playful, as well as taking advantage of the obvious peer to peer learning potential.
The most obvious way I thought to incorporate social bookmarking into lesson plans was to use Wordle as a critique aid. If you look at my blog, http://regan.blogspot.com you can read my example and how I thought to use Wordle as a classroom aid.
ReplyDeleteReading Regan's blog above. I am still confused as to why wordle and social tagging are associated with each other besides the fact that wordle has a gallery that everyone can see.
ReplyDeleteThat is just an off topic question maybe you can help with since you seem pretty knowledgeable about social tagging.
I love the lesson that incorporates social tagging. I thought the obvious but interesting way to use social tagging in the classroom is through research just as the horizon report discusses. Students could be assigned to different topics. They could then conduct research on their topic via sites like delicious and some of the sites the horizon report mentioned. Then when the results are collected. The class could collaboratively justify how and why their collected information could be put related in a logical way. They could then put this information together by writing, or visually. i.e. a painting, poster, design etc.
I think students could use delicious to find a new artist they like. After they find a new artist, they could talk about that artists aesthetic and how they found them. When I first was introduced to delicious, I searched for one of my favorite illustrators. After the initial search, I found the other people who had bookmarked her, and looked at what other bookmarks they had that were relevant to art and illustration. The problem with this idea is that you can't filter what they might find.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Philip that social tagging can be used to find artists that students will like. I also think that you could use social tagging to find artists that may be related to an artist that you enjoy. Social tagging can also be used when looking for more information on artists, art processes, and research.
ReplyDeleteThe use of social tagging can enhance am art class because it will bring a new dimension to learning about a piece of artwork and viewing what others have tagged about the artist and piece online. Social tagging will open new doors for communication worldwide.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Beth. Using it as a critique aid will help increase vocabulary for all the students. Also, it can force the students to work harder because it creates a sort of competition amongst them. I found that my students don't like to be corrected by their classmates, so they will try hard to get it right the first time.
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