Week 4- Delicious and "Trends and Issues"

Greg Mileski
Week 4- Social bookmarking and IDT
Dr. Horvitz

I really like using social bookmarking. I have had a delicious account for about two years now. This is great because I was always finding interesting things on the web and bookmarking them just to the computer I was on, that made it hard to access them if I was on a different computer. I would find things at school on my desktop computer and mark them there, then I might be at home trying to find that website and I couldn’t access them or find them easily because they weren’t bookmarked on that computer. Frustrating!! Now with delicious, I can find my websites I have bookmarked anywhere I have Internet access.

This is also a great value for teachers and students. Teachers can share bookmarks easily with colleagues using social bookmarking. Rather than sending individual websites to colleagues, they can access all your sites that you mark as public. You just need to share your delicious page address. The other nice thing is that others have bookmarked things that may be useful for you. This cuts down the amount of wasted time. For instance, I was looking for some resources for my geometry class and I was able to link onto other peoples delicious accounts by doing a search in delicious for things tagged as geometry. I found several great resources marked by other Geometry teachers. With the vast majority of information out on the web to sift through, I find it’s easier to use delicious to sort it all out. If others have bookmarked it, it probably is useful.

The potential for students is endless. Students could use a teachers bookmaking's to help locate resources on various topics. Students can also use it to keep their bookmarks organized in a fashion that they can use. It also allows them to access site anywhere they have Internet access, without having to remember individual URL addresses.

At first, I thought educational technology was just talking about the tools and software that you used to teach students. After reading the first chapter in Trends and Issues, I thought it was neat to see how the definitions for the field have changed over time and rightly so as the various types of technology has changed. If you think about the type of technology that was around when the first definition was created (ie. pictures, films and slides) compared to the type of technology around today (ie. Internet, Interactive whiteboards and podcast), then there is no wonder way the definition has changed. Besides, the field is more than just the equipment (media) used in the field it is also the techniques (instructional design) and human performance. When I think how knowing the new definition will help me in my career, I now know that it is more than just the media. When I’m looking at new technologies, I’ll now look at the media, the processes and how it will impact the learners performance. I like that Instructional Design and Technology looks at what problems need to be solved for students educationally, how a student learns and what the student needs to achieve the goal or task at hand. I feel Technology should answer these questions or not be used in education. I wonder how long until we get a new and improved definition?