Bookmarking

I am always surprised how few people use bookmarks and I believe we need to be more proactive in teaching students to use this effectively. I use 2 tools to meet my bookmarking needs.

First, I use my local laptop to bookmark items that are private to me.  That might range from financial institutions to travel resources.  These are things that I save for my own personal reference.  I do use Xmarks to sync bookmarks across browsers and devices (I'll write more about this in my next post).

Secondly, I use Diigo to bookmark a fair amount of material that I want to find later.  It seems the bookmarks on my computer are more static and ones I use over and over.  The ones on Diigo are usually things I want to reference and search out later.  The other aspect of Diigo is the social bookmarking aspect. Although I can choose what is public and private, most of my bookmarks are public.  I have created several lists where I just add links.  I am pretty diligent about tagging so I can effectively search for these resources later.  Adding links to Diigo is easy on both my iPhone and my laptop.  It is also my way to share some of what I find for those that want to follow the list.

I have the following Diigo lists to which I actively add links as I come across them:

• 21C Libraries: I place links to how libraries are changing and adapting to a 21st century context here.  This is a relatively new list for me.
• 21st Century Schools & Education: This is a broad category that relates to a lot of topics that I write about on my blog.  It is probably my most active list.  I like to bookmark good articles and such I find here.  I don't necessary agree with everything I bookmark, but it allows me to archive stuff in one place.
• Cool Tools: This is just for software and applications I find that seem neat.  Some are for me to look up later and pursue further reviews.  These aren't always ones I would recommend.  It is like a brainstorming space or a post-it note to check out later.
• Japan Earthquake Links:  I created this one to compile some resources I found and that might benefit students on the recend natural disaster.
• Leadership: I like to post general leadership links here.

Diigo has some other cool features like posting highlights and sticky notes onto websites.  Some teachers find this valuable to help students as they are reading and research information.  I personally don't use that as it isn't my purpose.  It might be useful for some classroom teachers, particularly in conducting some webquests.

Do you use bookmarks?  Do you use different apps to accomplish your goals?  Feel free to share your ideas in the comments.