Bill MacKenty

How to keep track of good websites?

I got this question from a new instructional technology specialist - I think it’s a great question, and I wanted to share it with my readers!

Some teachers have asked me about bookmarking some websites that the children are using for research here in the lab. I have two questions:
1. Do you have a policy about bookmarking in your lab? It seems to me that over time there would be a ridiculous maze of websites favorited on each machine? Any suggestions or policies for me?

yup. we don’t allow it at all in the high school. In fact, we have software installed on our lab computers that, literally, re-formats the computers every evening and restores the computer to a nice clean pristine state. Please see my answer to #2 for an idea.

2. If I do place bookmarks on all the machines in the lab, is there an easy way to update all of them at once or do I have to place the bookmarks in each browser manually?

I would stay away from bookmarking websites on the kids browsers. instead, I would put only one bookmark, something to a shared bookmarking tool, like del.icio.us. This way, you can quickly update the links only once, and all the kids see the updated link. If I am not mistaken, I think this is how our math teacher manages his links - he has his own website, and the kids are sent to the website, where they can see the links.  The nice thing about del.ico.us is you can share the links and sites can have multiple tags - so a site for math could have “math”, “4th grade”, “shapes”, and maybe “geometry”. Our librarian in the High School, uses a blog, where he updates with an assignment or some links - so all the kids need to do is go on his site.

You could also start a blog, or make a google pages site, but I think something like del.icio.us would be a good place start. The other reason I like del.icio.us is because if something horrible happens to our computers, we are not in trouble, and the kids can access the sites from home 😊 Hope this helps.

Warmly,

Bill