Social Bookmarking

This is certainly a useful idea if undertaken by a collective that is actively trying to find and share relevant information. It certainly is easier than searching google. Thus, under the concept of a PLN or music educators sharing resourcres, it could be effective.

I tend to wonder though about wider uses simply because thye require that everyone uses a sort of universal logic and systemizes their tags. I know that my personal bookmarks on my computer are not organized in such a way as to be easily followed by anyone other than myself. They are split into divisions, but the divisions often have to do with associations I have with the sites that may not be obvious to others. It's certainly possible to tag by subject, but I also tend to organize bookmarks by how useful I think the sites are. So two sites could both be relevant to music education or flute playing, but one might be useful enough that I visit it once a week, while another might be more like once a month.

The idea of social bookmarking doesn't really solve this problem, unless one starts tagging things as "useless" or includes in the description the limitations of the entry. So, in some sense, one is still back to analyzing and sorting through the material, just with a higher probability of relevance. Certainly this is an improvement from search engines, users just shouldn't expect their accounts to be bombarded with heavenly manna in the form of universally relevant and useful bookmarks as identified by tags in every instance.