Social Bookmarking

Signing up for delicious (I forget where to put the "dots") was the easiest thing I've done so far. I can't believe how easy it is to manage my bookmarks and locate them when I need them! I've used the tag feature to find additional websites--the whole process is addicting and so much more productive than my previous system. I've even shared my bookmarks with colleagues.

The social bookmarking information has come at a very opportune time for me. As a literacy support teacher, I am working with two other support teachers to create a "best practices" course for veteran English teachers. Our district has limited funds for professional development, so our idea was to put together a book study on best practices for nonfiction writing. The problem we found in early November was that there is no one book to help us, so we started looking at a group of books, and played around with the idea of developing a course using sections of books, videos, websites, and Web 2.0 tools. Then delicious appeared. I can research sites, provide them to teachers, let them research the latest strategies and Web 2.0 tools, and I think I have the foundation for the "book study" I hope to launch in February 2009. While this project may not help students directly, it will eventually meet 1b and 2a standards for NETS-S. I think it is interesting that in all my research, I found wonderful textbooks on reading strategies, but nothing that dealt with writing--writing is such a complex skill to teach and to learn!

My challenge is to create a specific focus that will help teachers create strategies to help students become more confident and effective writers. I'm hoping Web 2.0 will create additional interest both for teachers and students.