e-tivity 4

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a way to store and share your favorite websites and blogs online instead of on your computer. “Bookmarking” because it’s a way to always find your way back to that great website you found. “Social” because not only are you sharing your bookmarks with a community of people, but they are sharing theirs with you; this gives you access to searches other people, with your same interests, have already done to find great websites. We’re going to use social bookmarking to build up a repository of useful websites for all of you in your English language learning, tapping into each other’s resources.

Sarah

Purpose: To start social bookmarking and in doing so, search the Web and del.icio.us for websites of interest to us all (read, read, read), evaluate them and summarize them (write).

Task:
1 – Explore. Go to del.icio.us and explore. Click around to get an idea of what the website is all about.

2 – Log in. If you weren’t in class, you will have to register to use del.icio.us (obviously it’s free!). Click on “register” and proceed using your bloggingenglish username. The second step involves installing easy-to-use buttons on your computer; you can do this on your computer at home if you like, but we will not be using them in the language lab. If you do install them, go on to the third step as well.

3 – Search for websites and blogs that might interest you by typing key words in the tag box. For example, in this course you might be interested in English, learning, listening, writing, genre, blogging, etc. If you come up with too many bookmarks, narrow your search by adding more words. Scan the bookmarks that come up and go and visit the ones that interest you. Choose 5 that you think may be of interest to you or your classmates.

4 – Post your new bookmarks. At the top of the page, click on “post”. Then you will see a frame like the one here..

url: (self-explanatory)
description: this is like the title, what other people will see. It can be the title of the website or a summary-title that you make up.
notes: Make a 2-5 short sentences summing up the website in such a way as to attract attention. Do NOT cut and paste information from the site; use your own words.
tags: These are words that describe the site. Among the other tags you choose, always write bloggingenglish1 or bloggingenglish2. That way we’ll always have a way to find our course bookmarks.

Respond: Choose 1 bookmark from each of your classmate’s 5 bookmarks based on the description in “notes” (find them by searching for the bloggingenglish tags). Write a post in your personal blog about your impressions of social bookmarking and your classmates’ choices.

Timeline: Friday, November 10 (task), Monday, November 13 (respond).