Pros and Cons of Being Social - Social Bookmarking That Is

Are you social? Do you bookmark sites online? Meet social bookmarking!

Okay, it's a little different than that. Social Bookmarking is an online resource/site that allows users to bookmark, annotate, and share your favorite sites.  Here is a list of what I believe to be the pros and cons of it.

• PROS:
1. Helpful when using different computers - at home, school, or work; on a tablet, desktop, laptop - anywhere you have internet!
2. Most are free - just download and/or create a user account
3. Easy to manage, organize, sort, and find web pages
4. Great way to share with family, friends, coworkers, students, or even the world!  You can even search for another like-minded users’ bookmarks to gain new websites.
5. Ability to tag a site with various qualifying words, making it easier to find and use later
6. Ability for teachers to share quality, trusted, and relevant sites to use for a research project; also to share with parents of students (on college prep, math/reading sites for kids, community events, teacher’s site, etc.)

• CONS:

1. Ability for spamming and “overtagging,” in order to improve search results and business
2. Requires internet connection
3. Has been recently replaced with more popular sites, like Pinterest, Google Drive, and more
4. Bookmarked by amateurs and need to test and approve each site on your own
5. Requires updating of websites, as many shut down, move, or just become inactive

Don’t take my word for it though.  If you want to try out social bookmarking, you can choose one of many sites:

• Diigo
• Educlipper
• Del.icio.us

I had heard a lot about Del.icio.us and wanted to check it out for myself and started there.  I tried to create a new account, and no matter what I did - use Google+, use e-mail, use Facebook - it said “ERROR.”  Maybe you will have better luck!  So I then tried Diigo and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was.  I just needed to verify my e-mail address, and away I went saving my important sites.  I also love the annotate feature,  highlighting and adding sticky notes.

ISTE Standards used:  3. Knowledge Constructor -

b.  Evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other resources.

c.  Curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.

~Your not-so-techie teacher