Bookmarking - Personal or Social?

"You have to solve a problem that people actually have," Schachter says [about the creation of del.cio.us]. "But it's not always a problem that they know they have, so that's tricky" Technology Review.

Joshua Schachter the creator of the original del.icio.us probably didn't realize the impact his bookmarking system would have on the Internet when he originally launched it in 2003. Not only is it a social bookmarking system, but its use of tags is also making it an invaluable resource for many.

I was one of those people that didn't know I had a problem, until about two weeks ago, when suddenly everything changed.

Let me preface this by saying that I have three computers that I consistently work on - two at school and one at home, and I have the same list of favorites on all of the computers. The way that I achieved this was to always email myself the sites that I had bookmarked, so I could access them at either location. (Right now, I can almost see all of you in cyberspace shaking your heads and laughing at me.) Only now do I realize what a waste of time this was.

The slow destruction of my old system began at the end of August when I started EDES 501, and started to visit and revisit what feels like hundreds of sites on the Internet. I happily bookmarked many of the sites that I had been visiting - some for future reference, others because I needed to investigate them further. As per usual, I emailed myself all of the site URL's that I had bookmarked, but I was beginning to have an inkling that this was not the best scenario..

Suddenly, two weekends ago, my semi-organized world came to a screeching halt! I (somewhat) merrily went into school to work on photosharing sites; however, the entire network was down, which meant that I couldn't access anything. My frustration escalated, as I realized that I was unable to work at home that day because my husband and daughter were housebound due to the rainy weather (Anyone with young children will understand why working at home wasn't an option for me). Suddenly, I could feel panic setting in as I realized that I would need to
a) find a computer to use and
b) waste precious time by having to find all of my bookmarks over again.

Fortunately, I was able to use a computer at my husband's school, but I spent (wasted) a lot of time trying to find all of the sites that I had bookmarked. This is when I thought to myself that there must be a better way to make this work. With all of these great web tools, I should be able to access my bookmarks from anywhere in the world.

In keeping with the inquiry topic for this week, I embarked on a journey of trying to stay organized in an electronic Web 2.0 environment. But the first thing I needed to figure out was what this tool might be called. Fortunately, it didn't take too long to figure out, so I then began reading Solomon and Schrum's section on social bookmarking in Web 2.0 - new tools, new schools. They note that "traditional bookmarking is an exercise in frustration because students use different computers each time they work[,]" and even if they could work at the same workstation, it is possible that someone may have erased the information. Frustration was what I was feeling , so I knew that I was on the right track.

Then I went on to read Richardson's detailed description on social bookmarking. He talks about both Furl.net and del.icio.us (Note that this spelling is no longer used); his favorite being Furl.net. In general, I have found that Richardson's favourite tools are also the ones that I tend to gravitate towards because they are the most straightforward. However, since the first edition of his book's printing, Delicious has undergone some significant changes to make it have similar features, as well as a few more than Furl.net.

Social bookmarking in Plain English comments that "social bookmarking sites take a world of chaos and make it orderly." Due to the fact that it is becoming more common to work from different spaces such as one's laptop, personal computer, computer at work, and possibly a hand held device such as a Blackberry, it is necessary to be able to quickly and easily access one's bookmarks. This is just one more step to staying organized in a Web 2.0 world.

I went on to explore both Furl.net and Delicious, and found Delicious to be more user-friendly than Furl.net. What I found particularly useful was that Delicious was able to import all of my "favorites" directly from my computer into my account. This was not an option on Furl.net, and it saved me a lot of time. I then proceeded to "tag" or label everything, as I originally had everything in folders in my personal bookmarks. I was pleased with how easily this was accomplished. I was definitely hooked, and I feel very relieved that I can now access the information that I need from anywhere in the world. In fact, the minute that I get onto a new computer, I install the Delicious Internet Explorer add-ons, so that they are at the ready.

So what are the implications for teachers and students?

"[A]lthough del.icio.us didn't need lots of users to be useful, once it had lots of users, it became valuable in an entirely new way. Almost accidentally, it became an excellent tool for making sense of the Web" Technology Review. For me and my colleagues, social bookmarking can be a great organizational tool, but I also learned that it can be a great resource to share information about a particular topic with each other, with students or others in cyberspace. By making my bookmarks "public," and using common tags I enable others who are looking for similar topics to access them. The beauty of social bookmarking is that it "allows like-minded individuals to find one another and create new communities of users that continue to influence the ongoing evolution of folksonomies and common tags for resources" Educause.

The one thing that became obvious to me this last week was that teachers on my staff are not aware of social bookmarking and the many advantages found through tagging. As I spoke to my colleagues, I was the only one who was exploring it. When I expanded my search to include my students, they also didn't know what I was talking about. Clearly my job in the coming weeks and months is to espouse the benefits of social bookmarking sites and encourage colleagues and students to sign-up and try one out! I think they might be amazed by the vast amounts of "organized" information that they will have at their fingertips.