According to De Kunder, n.d., there are over 15 billion web pages. How is one to keep track and organize their findings? We all know how time-consuming research can be. Who wants to spend additional time searching for their findings? I don’t. And on top of it, I want to be able to organize my research findings so when I need them I can quickly and efficiently use them – whether it is for my own personal needs or to share it with others.
So, what do I do once my research is done? There are many ways to archive our findings. One of them is social bookmarking, also called tagging. This is a great way to keep research findings from being scattered all over the place and easy to locate when needed. There are several websites for bookmarking (tagging). According to our textbook “The Connected Educator” by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach & Lani Ritter Hall, the ones worth mentioning most are “Delicious”, “Diigo”, “Flickr”, and “YouTube”.
“Delicious”, per the authors, is one of the more popular websites for tagging or bookmarking. Sounds easy to use. Just find a website of interest, enter the web address, and add tags so you can recover the content when needed. You can even tap into book markings of people who have similar interests and subscribe to their tags.
“Diigo”, another way of social bookmarking mentioned in the text book, gives you the option to add its browser so you are able to highlight items of interest and even make notes right onto its website. There are 3 sections of “Diigo”- “My library” to do research, “My Network” where one can follow others of similar interest and comment on their work, and “My Groups”, a place where one can share documents with people of the same learning community.
How do people share content and interact with others? According to the textbook, there are several great tools to comment and collaborate: Blogs, RSS Readers, Google Reader, Podcasts, Micro blogs, Wikis, Wiki spaces and Google Documents.
I personally enjoy Blogs and I love listening to podcasts. Another one worth mentioning is Google Documents. Blogs are usually short (except for this one today) and written in a journal like style. Great way to keep people interested and updated and share ideas. I love podcasts, because I can stay informed and keep up on things I am interested in while commuting to and from work or school. Google Documents is especially practical because it is online (in the Cloud) and I can access it from anywhere. Not only I, but anyone else can access my documents as well – which is extremely helpful when doing group projects.
It is amazing how many different tools we have handy these days to make our personal and professional life so much easier. What a sin if we spent all this time doing research and not be able to organize and file it in a way that it can be accessed fast and shared easily with others!
Reference:
Nussbaum-Beach, S., & Hall, L. R. (2012). The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital age. Solution Tree Press.
