Organizing and Sharing Bookmarks

I am so excited the Delicious came into my life! This program has truly taken a habit that I have had for a long time, and completely revolutionized it. Postman would be happy because it solves problems that I have been working around for some time. I am a bookmarker. Big time. I have bookmarks on all of my computers, organized into folders and subfolders by topic. This is a bit of a challenge when you take into account my home laptop, my fiance’s laptop (which is regularly in my possession), my home desktop, my school laptop, my tablet and my school smart cart…not to mention my smart phone….all of which have become overrun with saved webpages. I thought I solved the problem when I discovered that the Google Chrome browser can create a shared bookmark section if you login on all of your devices. But, at school there was no way to coordinate those links with parents or coworkers unless I was emailing links back and forth. I am so excited that Delicious can do everything that I want and need it to do. I have already transferred over many of my save bookmarks. If you want to, check it out here!

I think that Delicious will come in handy for my kindergarten students when we start doing animal research projects. I can post a few good links up on the sight, and parents can log in and see my links and add their own. It will be a running list of resources and ideas that we can all contribute on. I think Delicious would, similarly, get even more use in upper grades that are more research based.

Before now, Instructional Technology in my classroom referred to the programs and devices that were already installed and in place that I could utilize to expand my students thinking. I agree with the book definition focusing on the design of instruction and the use of media for instructional purposes. For the first time, I am beginning to think of more student created means of utilizing technology: blogs, bookmark managers, wiki sites, all of these great ways to implement technology in a way that can be customized to each student’s individual learning path. I’m excited that I have all of these resources now to implement with my students.

I found it so interesting that the definition of technology has changed so much over the years. It is not surprising that it will continue to change and new technologies develop. I am hoping that I can find ways to continue to use all of the resources  available with my kindergarteners and that there will be more technology available for them to use as well.