Friday, February 22, 2008

BOOKMARKS ...


THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF BOOKMARKS

Social Bookmarking:

I have to thank Mary Locke for insisting I needed to get into social bookmarking. No, it doesn't mean she thought I needed to get a life ... it's not like LavaLife or PlentyofFish!

I am still working with this Web 2.0 tool to fully understand how it works. Maybe you could let me know which of these you like better as a way of gathering and sorting teacher- and TL-recommended websites and how you think we might use these.

del.icio.us: The first is posted on del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/tlbookmarks. You can ask me for the password and enter your own recommended bookmarks for TLs to use ... or you can start your own list. I imported the del.icio.us list of great websites for TLs and for teaching, a list I had called "tlbookmarks," into Diigo.

Diigo: Another social bookmarking program is provided by Diigo which is an acronym for Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff. Diigo (dee'go) is a step beyond social bookmarking -- it is, or so the site tells us, about Social Annotation: "By combining social bookmarking, clippings, in situ annotation, tagging, full-text search, easy sharing and interactions, Diigo offers a powerful personal tool and a rich social platform for knowledge users, and in the process, turns the entire web into a writable, participatory and interactive media."

I am not sure how long Diigo will be free for users. I invite you to the group that can view the list, but I can do lots more, like highlight parts of webpages and add sticky notes to the bookmarks too. You can check out Diigo here: ttp://www.diigo.com/. Email to ask me for an invitation to the group that can see and add to the list being developed, the one called tlbookmarks.

Here's the article from School Library Journal that got me started on Diigo -- "Cool Tools: Best of Social Bookmarking," by Steve Hargadon (12/1/2007). Here are some preliminary notes about social bookmarking and these two tools:

If you "bookmark" a website into diigo, as opposed to del.icio.us, you can actually choose what you want others to see on the list by "expanding" the listing.

As you "bookmark," you also "tag" (add keywords or descriptors) so that you can re-sort or "bundle" the sites together by the same tag. I have created a few of these lists on each page, as you will see.

If the site creator lets you, you can add bookmarks too. That way we could begin to compile a list of useful sites for all school libraries, students, teachers, etc.
There are more kinds of bookmarks ...

The Virtual Bookmark - Check here as there will be regular posts to supplement the BCTLA's professional journal, The Bookmark.

The BCTLA's Bookmark, Winter 2008: "School Libraries as Classrooms" - it's online, 67 pages long, and beautifully done. The article by Mary Locke and Heather Daly (who has a job like mine in Coquitlam) provides more depth to the description of the role and responsibilities of teacher-librarians. Ken Haycock writes on The Teachers' Professional Library and The History of School Libraries in the VSB. Denise North presents a unit on children and injustice. Read about Val Hamilton. Check out reviews by teacher-librarians. Angie MacRitchie and Al Smith, our Okanagan BCTLA Exec editorial team, have put this edition together and have done an amazing job.

Other Kinds of Bookmarks / Books that made a mark

Remember it's Freedom to Read Week


Here's a little reading centre bound to make a mark
on a little reader! Thanks, Helen, for the nice visit to Bayview on Friday.


Hello??? Still no comments on my blog. Maybe I have set it incorrectly.

Try to post a comment: What do you think about these social bookmarking tools?
Do you have a gmail account? Have you checked out the many features of gmail?

2 comments:

Lana said...

I haven't tried it yet, but other teachers have suggested that a group of students could contribute and use social bookmarking to collect websites for a research project. This could be done under the guidance of the TL to make sure that the sites are relevant, timely, accurate, ...

Interestingly, in the 'old days' not too long ago, this would have been called cheating. Being an old timer I have mixed feelings as I adjust to the participatory culture (and sometimes wondering if it really exists)

Unknown said...

You have to stop showing me new toys. It is 12:30 AM & I am still playing with wikispaces!