There are millions of websites… and the number grows daily. It can take time to sort great teaching sites from those that aren’t as helpful. Yet, there is a tool to make the job easy. It’s called social bookmarking. Watch this helpful YouTube video about the value of del.icio.us, one of the top social bookmarking sites. You may also want to read some of the earlier posts about social bookmarking for a list of things to consider when starting to use social bookmarks. Tell your colleagues about del.icio.us too. If they find great educational resources, they can share them and that will save you a lot of time, which means more time to teach … and more time to relax. That’s a winning combination.
Teacher Vicki Davis of coolcatblog created this excellent video about technology and the fear that people have around using it. It’s hosted on TeacherTube.com, a new educational alternative to YouTube.View this video file For more information on the reasons we need to teach technology in the schools, watch the presentation on 21st Century Skills.
What are the skills that a student and citizen of the Information Age needs to have?
The Partnership for the 21st Century has conducted a survey to identify the key skills needed for success in the 21st Century. Every student in your school or district should be:
1. a critical thinker
2. a problem solver
3. an innovator
4. an effective collaborator
5. a self-directed learner
6. information and media literate
7. globally aware
8. civically engaged
Ken Kay, President of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, explains in his presentation at the FETC Conference about why these skills are important. This hour presentation includes 8 strategies that your school and district will want to integrate into the curriculum to best prepare your students for the quickly changing terrain, as well as why these skills are critical to our students.
I’m going to share this presentation with my colleagues. It will provide an introduction to discussing what are the skills necessary for success in the 21st Century. I would love to get a school-wide consensus about what skills our students need to have and how to best support them in acquiring these lifelong skills. If you haven’t seen Did you know?, you will want to watch this dynamic and thought-provoking presentation by Karl Fisch. It’s only about 6 minutes long. It’ll give you the inspiration and motivation to listen to the hour-long presentation, if you need a bit of a boost.
Del.icio.us is a website that allows you to bookmark sites. It’s called a social bookmark because, unlike bookmarks you add on your computer, you can access them from any computer. You can use social bookmarks to research information, collaborate or share sites with friends and family. The bookmarks are by default public information; however, you can change the settings so that others have no or limited access to what you mark.
Why Use Del.icio.us
Research on the Internet using social bookmarks is easy.
Bookmarked sites are accessible from any computer.
You can tag your bookmarks and organize them. You can use multiple tags for the same site. For example, I tag my Educating Millennials in the Information Age lens with millennials, information_age and squidoo.
Great sites can be shared with students or colleagues because social bookmarks are public.
You can “bundle” tags. For example, in my del.icio.us account I have a bundle called InformationAge and within it I have several related tags including wiki, blogs, squidoo and millennials.
Other people can benefit from your research. Instead of searching through an ever growing number of websites and blogs, I can search within del.icio.us and find what other people find valuable. Hence saving myself time.
You can share sites with other people using various features and tools. Del.icio.us has an easy to follow help section that explains the tools, such as networks, and includes why they are helpful.
You can also keep bookmarks private. You can still access your bookmarks from any computer, but others can have no or limited access to bookmarks.
5 Things to Know Before Using Social Bookmarks
Before you start to post things to del.icio.us, there are several things I highly recommend:
#1: Decide how you intend to use del.icio.us.
Are you intending to use social bookmarks for research or collaboration? Do you intend to share this information with others or is this for your own use?
Deciding whether you intend to have your bookmarks serve as a reference for others or mainly for personal use will impact how you structure your bookmarks.
#2: Choose your tags before you get started.
Before getting started put some thought into key tags that you would use. For me, the main things I was researching were math resources for students, Vedic math, Information Age and teaching technology.
#3:Think about some umbrella concepts that help you “bundle” your tags.
My bundles are EducationalVision, Math, InformationAge and Family. The last category being sites that members of my family created.
#4:Be mindful of the user name you choose.
When you bookmark sites and they are public, you are creating an on-line profile. You are identifying yourself with the information you mark as a favorite. Be thoughtful about the on-line profile you are creating and that this information is public. Even if you choose to use a name different from your actual name, note that the web is an amazing place and that information gets linked and connected. So be thoughtful of what you want identified with your user name, even if it isn’t your actual name.
#5: Allow for Private Savings.
Go to the “Settings” button on the top right and change to allow for private bookmarking. This will put a “do not share” button option on your page when you go to save a site.
