Del.icio.us, Wikis, and Social Bookmarking

In regards to the internet and web resources, I have always been a little overwhelmed with the amount of information available and how to sift through the information to find valuable resources. However, as I continue to proceed through this class, I am discovering that there are ways to better handle and sort through the vast amount of information that is available through the internet. Earlier in the class I discovered Google Reader and how it can help to organize information. Then more recently, through the article about del.icio.us and the activities about wikis and social bookmarking that I have been going through, I am realizing that there are many tools available to help organize and extrapolate the value of web resources to enhance searching the internet for valuable information.

I felt that the article on del.icio.us and the activities related to wikis and social bookmarking provided an excellent introduction into the value and uses of wikis, and social bookmarking and del.icio.us in particular. I thought that it was interesting to discover how easy it is to connect so many people in an organized manner to share information. With some background on how to use these resources, as we are currently receiving, these tools can be valuable assets to me and other educators for years to come. In particular, wikis and social bookmarking tools, such as del.icio.us, can provide music educators with a means to identify and sort through important music related websites and software. Not only do these tools help to gather and determine the value of resources, they also provide the ability to continually update and refine information so that music educators can remain current and follow the latest trends and resources available to music educators.

As I am learning, wikis are one of the valuable tools that can have many applications in music education. Wikis provide an easy way to collect and share information amongst many people. As we are doing in class, by creating a wiki of music software, wikis provide music educators with a means to share information and organize knowledge that they gain with others. This helps create a set of resources that music educators can access to discover the resources that will best aid them and their students. In addition to creating a list of resources, as we are doing for our software project, a wiki can provide music educators with the opportunity to share ideas such as lesson plans. For example, a music educator can create a lesson plan that can be shared with other music teachers, or a group of music teachers may work together to create a lesson on a particular music topic through the continual update of the wiki. Along with the ability to provide and share information on a wiki, they provide the opportunity to continually update and improve information. Again, for example, if music educators were creating a lesson plan, after attempting the lesson, music teachers could go back to the lesson and edit it to reflect the ideas that worked well and the areas that needed improvement, which will help all the teachers that are working with the lesson. In addition to concepts such as creating music lesson plans and sharing ideas about music software, wikis could be used to create a source of information for many other music related topics. For example, it could be used as a database of information about musical repertoire that could continue to grow and be used by music teachers to help select the best materials to use to teach their students.

Along with wikis, social bookmarking sites, such as del.icio.us, can provide innumerable applications in the area of music education. Like wikis, social bookmarking sites provide a valuable way for music educators to organize and share information. I think that del.icio.us, and social bookmarking in general, provide music educators with a great way to sift through the vast amount of information available on the internet. As I stated earlier, the information found on the internet can be overwhelming; however, with social bookmarking, music educators can better discover resources that will be helpful to them because they can search through a site such as del.icio.us and discover the resources that other music educators also deemed valuable or useful. This helps to improve and limit the resources that one discovers. In addition, with the ability to add tags and descriptions of websites, a music educator can more easily search and discover the sites and information for which he/she is looking. Also, the feature to sort tags by frequency helps to establish the importance of concepts for someone searching the site. Therefore, if a music educator wants to access information about a particular topic, he/she can more easily discover important information, and perhaps more importantly, information that other music educators have established as pertinent. Like wikis, another advantage of social bookmarking is the ability to share information and continually enhance and update the information that is available. Through social bookmarking, one is not only creating a source of information for himself/herself, he/she is able to share that information with others. Therefore, music educators can also see what resources other music educators are collecting. Social bookmarking also provides the opportunity to continually add and remove links as well as tags and descriptions and to continue to expand networks, which will ultimately provide an advancing resource for all involved over time. For example, social bookmarking can be used by music educators to discover the best resources and materials available to create music lessons, or to discover the best ways to teach students particular performance skills or highlight the materials available for student practice. With the time constraints that all music educators face, and the vast amount of information available, social bookmarking sites, such as del.icio.us, and wikis provide music educators with more efficient ways to manage material and search for information. This ability will help music educators refine their teaching and provide students with the best possible music education that they can.