Social Tools: Social Bookmarking

Social tools, or folksonomies, are web tools that allow users to collaboratively create and manage tags to annotate and categorize content on the web. Social tools are social applications on the web that are a characteristic of Web 2.0 and thus allow users to collectively classify and find information. Social tools utilize social software and social media in order to allow interaction and connection between people. One major social tool is social bookmarking. Social bookmarking is a way for users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks, or resource identifiers, of web resources. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages in the system. When the resources are bookmarked, it is these bookmarks that are shared on the site, not the actual resources themselves. Social bookmarking tools allow users to add descriptions to bookmarks so other users know what the resource contains without opening it up for themselves. Tags can also be added for users to use keywords to share content, making social bookmarking social tagging and thus a social tool, or folksonomy. They provide a way for users to easily classify, share, and locate information. Social bookmarking services are what they say - SOCIAL tools. Since they indicate who created the bookmark, users can easily find individuals interested in the same topics as them (based on bookmarks) and connect with them.

Social bookmarking can be very useful in the field of education. Through social bookmarking sites, teachers can freely collaborate with each other and access each others bookmarks to share educational websites and resources with each other. By accessing a social bookmarking site of another teacher, teachers can see a list of resources that that teacher uses or finds helpful, and a description of what it contains, and use those resources if they think they will be helpful to them as well. Teachers can also create bookmarking pages for their students and include bookmarks of resources that pertain to lessons and material, offer practice of material such as activities and games, and homework help and tutoring sites. The same way, teachers can create pages of bookmarks for parents, including bookmarks for school activities and information and resources for how to help their children.

This resource is an educational site that provides information on social bookmarking. It explains everything you need to know about social bookmarking. I chose it because it not only does it explain what it is and how it works, but it goes beyond the basics and explains its significance, the negative aspects of it, what the future holds, and its implications. This resource is very informative and comprehensive-very useful.