Social Bookmarking

Today I've been playing around with del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site. I've added this to my blog and have spent many hours adding my old bookmarks from several different computers and browsers. A social bookmarking tool like del.icio.us would be an excellent web 2.0 tool to use in the classroom. Teachers could share their del.icio.us page with their classes and allow students to see the sites they have bookmarked for an individual lesson or unit. A teacher could also create a del.icio.us account for each class and allow students to update the links for the account. Of course, if a teacher was going to do this, there would have to be conversations about digital citizenship and posting only links that are acceptable for school use. I am confident that had I done this with my sophomores or seniors last year, we could have built up a significant list of resources for our class. This link could also be included on a teacher web page.

Tools for the Classroom

I realize that it has been awhile since my last post. I've been busy with my new position and have learned many new things in the past few months. My mind has been spinning with all of the different ways I could have used technology in my classroom had I only had time to learn about the different tools. In the coming days, I will be posting about some of the different tools I have come across. Some of the tools I will be writing about include social bookmarking; using SKYPE for videoconferencing; Google Earth; Street View in Google Maps; and resources for Reader's Workshop in the elementary classroom.