In my district, the students' first REALLY big research project/paper comes in 9th grade. Usually we pick two to three topics that the kids get to choose from. (Possibly climate change, mandatory community service, benefits of a certain program in school, etc.) In groups, we work together to find relevant, reliable sources. Sometimes this is really hard online because students are prone to doing a google search and then believing that the first site to come up MUST be the best, most accurate site out there.
In this class, we could all use social bookmarking to help each other. I believe that students would be more likely to really look at the criteria for "What makes a source 'good'?" if they were only responsible for finding three or four. If everyone in a group found three sources, by the end of the week kids could have access (through their BuddyMarks account) to over thirty sources.
I had twins a month ago, so I'm still home on maternity leave. My sub is going to start the research unit in three weeks. I'm really going to try to explore and learn more about social bookmarking. My hope is that when I meet with her next week I'll be able to make this suggestion to her and show her how to use some of these tools.
Any other thoughts on using this in an English classroom?
