Social Bookmarking
From WolfWikis
We all bookmark websites, intending to go back to them in the future, but if you are like most people the endless list of bookmarks becomes daunting. To top that off you always need a specific site when you are not a your computer. Enter del.icio.us an online bookmarking site. What makes del.icio.us so special? Two things - tags and sharing.
Tags allow you to categorize your bookmarks. So say you are looking at a great website like The Plantation Letters that is perfect for your classroom, you can categorize it as: NChistory, letters, middleschool, primarysource, etc. So that when you inevitably forget the name of the site, but you remember that it had to do with North Carolina History you can find it.
Now imagine that you could share this list with your students. Instead of e-mailing them websites, or worse writing them on the board, you can have a dynamic list of bookmarks that your students can use for reference! Just tag the website something like - 8thgrade_4thperiod - then your students will be able to see all the websites with that tag.
The best part is that del.icio.us is not only free, but it also has no advertising. Check out my del.icio.us links at: http://del.icio.us/bethanyvsmith
Delicious
http://delicious.com/bethanyvsmith
Diigo
Trailfire
Via Lisa Hervey
Trailfire is a Web 2.0 tool that allows teachers to cull a cohesive set of websites into a resource directly relating to content and/or learner outcomes. The web pages can be annotated with notes or questions, and the trail link can be shared with students and colleagues.
Here are some ideas:
- Integrate websites into your presentations. If you plan to show one or more web-pages during a presentation, create a trail ahead of time. All you have to do is click the next button.
- Facilitate classroom web exploration. If you have a class where you want your students to explore a list of websites, create a trail for easy navigation. More importantly, it creates an easy to access archive of the websites. Bonus: students can add their own comments to the pages on the trail and continue adding to this resource after the class and even after the course.
- Assess a web exploration activity. If you plan a class activity where students must explore and find information on the internet, have them document the path they followed to find the information. Use the text notes to have students annotate what they found and/or reflections on method. Bonus: Demonstrating and reflecting on how to find good information on the web is valuable information to learn, discuss and share.
- Creating Web Quests for students. Many teachers may want to create web quests to use with their class as a learning activity. Trailfire is an extremely easy way to create the navigation component of a web quest.
- Student-created Web Quests. Many teachers also want to have their student create their own web quests. Students will find it easy and intuitive to use Trailfire as a central component of their web quest.
Using websites on Internet safety, I created a Web Safety Trailfire that asks you to probe these further.
Excellent examples:
Follow these steps to create your trailfire :
- the following YouTube Tutorial provides an introduction to making a Trailfire site
- create a free account at http://trailfire.com/
I also recommend downloading the Firefox Web browser from Mozilla at:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ Trailfire has a plug-in you can download for the Firefox tool bar that will allow you to quick-save your trail marks