One of the great things that I got out from reading chapter 6 of Richardson is that the social web is a continuing growing and learning process. Everyone that is willing to contribute and share knowledge helps out the next person in line. And this falls great into place when educators and students are involved. The internet is already an everyday flow of conversation and information, and social bookmarking is one of many useful tools to get things going on the right foot. Two social bookmarking sites that the author uses and cites within the chapter are Diigo and del.icio.us. These two sites really help develop an organized and explorative source of information for teachers to pass along to their students. I mean, when exploring the internet on a daily basis, for pleasure or research purposes, there are always great links that just need to be saved for future reference and social bookmarking, is one of the great tools to help with that.
Social bookmarking is a great way to involve students to getting to know how to use technology that will not only be insightful within the classroom, but for their own personal use outside the classroom. The only negative that can come from this is not using this process to get better acclimated with social bookmarking. The more that teachers as well as students continue to play and get a good feel with everything, the more that they will not only help others but also themselves immensely. Personally, I never even knew about social bookmarking until reading this chapter and now that I know, I have to make a conscience effort to create accounts at these sites and really know my stuff so I don’t come off as a nincompoop to my students. Whatever I’m able to bring to the classroom can only be a benefit to my students and I will try my best too incorporate social bookmarking, to some degree.
