Social Bookmarking, expertise, and other Issues

This week we will be focusing on a variety of issues, including social bookmarking, expertise, and as a potential side issue, the use of laptops in the classroom. Your school districts may have strict policies about when students can use laptops in the classroom, but these issues have been resurfacing recently in two other (frequently linked on Facebook) articles that I would like you to read in conjunction with your regular readings.

The first, from The New Yorker, calls for bans on laptop use because of a number of studies that have suggested they serve as a distraction. The other, from Slate, suggests that the choice of using a laptop should be up to the students (although, to be fair, the author admits that laptops are typically a distraction for students). One consideration for this week's blog post might be to address the issue.

A second alternative would be to try to experiment with a social bookmarking service such as Diigo or Delicious. These tools function as bookmarking services, much like the one on your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc.), but with the added bonus that you can access them from any computer you wish once you've logged in. You can also link to friends or others with similar interests and share resources (this is something that, as we will see, you can also do with Pinterest). The lecture will go out on email shortly, and I will also post a podcast by Sunday night or Monday.

Update: Check out this conversation on Twitter inspired by a question I had about our course readings this week.