The way that we collect and catalog information has evolved over the past two decades. I recently explained to my students that I used to carry around a stack of index cards for months at a time as I collected information from actual books in the college library. I would then use those cards to compile those thoughts from resources for my research papers.
They looked at me like I had two heads.
They were so perplexed as to why I wouldn’t have just pinned the sources to a Pinterest board, bookmarked the sites on a Lino board, collected the links into a new collection on Diigo, or at least pasted the information into a word document. To actually take the time and effort to transcribe the information by hand from a book onto an index card seems completely archaic to them and very inefficient.
There are so many choices for students now to organize and retrieve information. I have encouraged students to create an account on Diigo orDelicious. Both of these sites allow for social bookmarking and are great sources for collaborative bookmarks. Our students are all issued Google accounts through our affiliation with Google Apps for Education. This allows them to install the Diigo app and the Diigo extension and use them both regardless of what computer they are using.
There are many different advantages to the different social bookmarking sites. This article : 50 social bookmarking sites shows that we are limited only by our preferences. For projects that are more artistic or visual in nature, I prefer Pinterest. I like that I can sort back through the pins and find the image that I remember and I am trying to locate. I like that I can search the pins and add my own annotations and tags as I bookmark the site. For more text intensive blogs or articles, I enjoy using Diigo. It is easy to organize the articles by topic and tag them with the area that they are addressing. Both have the capabilities of adding an extension in Google Chrome or a bookmarklet to your toolbar. You can also follow other bookmarkers on both sites.
Here is the link to my Pinterest Board: Ideas for my Classroom.
I enjoy following the pins of Vicki Davis, Teach 123, and National Science Teacher’s Association.
Do you have any boards on Pinterest that you follow? What about any Diigo users that have a great collection of bookmarks? Leave the links in the comments below….
 
