This document discusses using social bookmarking tools like Delicious and Diigo to support inquiry-based learning. It describes how the author set up bookmarking sites for history students to tag and share sources they found online. Students found this helpful for seminar preparation and developing research skills. While some engagement issues arose, most students felt it improved their thinking and ability to find different types of sources. The author reflected that social bookmarking can effectively support inquiry-based learning when combined with specific tasks and modeling from instructors.

1. From delicious to diigo: Using social bookmarking to support inquiry-based learning Jamie Wood Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences (CILASS) University of Sheffield

2. Overview of talk Who am I? What is CILASS? What is inquiry-based learning? What is social bookmarking? What I did… What the students thought… Reflections and practical considerations Social bookmarking…

3. Context - personal Peripatetic LDRA role at CILASS – support for and research into inquiry-based learning Previous teaching experience in History Idea of students generating bibliography seemed a good one Student use of the internet – is it really that bad?

4. CILASS Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 5 year programme (2005-2010) of reward, development, innovation, research Core community: Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences; extending to other Faculties “Modelling the process of research in the student learning experience”

5. Inquiry-based learning: Two definitions “Inquiry refers to instructional practices designed to promote the development of high order intellectual and academic skills through student-driven and instructor-guided investigation of student-generated questions” (McMaster University) “An array of classroom practices that promote student learning through guided and, increasingly, independent investigation of complex questions and problems, often for which there is no single answer” (North Carolina State University)

7. Guided and supported by academic and learning support staff

8. Problems; case scenarios; field-work; experiential learning; small- and large-scale research projects

9. ‘Full’ IBL – the design principle for whole modules/programmes

10. ‘Hybrid’ IBL – activities incorporated into more traditional curricula

12. Social bookmarking and IBL Active engagement. Social/ collaborative element. Allows for collaborative construction of knowledge/ learning. Therefore potentially useful for supporting IBL… ‘tag cloud’ created by my classes in 2008

13. Context 1st year core History lecture-based module 1 seminar per week for two groups Oral presentations (2) and contributions assessed (17% of course mark) Assessed essays (33%) Exam (50%)

17. I created a course blog, to which the students posted a weekly question arising from their preparatory readings = inquiry?

18. I read the blog and delicious site, using them as a basis for seminar preparation

19. Experimentation occurred http://paganschristiansheretics.wordpress.com/ transferred to: http://paganschristiansheretics.blogspot.com/

20. What happened Between us, the students and I Posted 199 bookmarks to delicious, using 364 different tags Posted 56 posts to the blog

21. Reflections on delicious – positive It’s easy for both the students and I Most (over 80%) of the students engaged with it Some students have engaged with it consistently Seminars were more relevant to what the students had done – e.g. sources we looked at/ questions we addressed Useful for me to chart process of student work (e.g. websites, searches) The students like it

22. Reflections on delicious – issues Some students haven’t engaged with it (issue of logins) Some students have only engaged with it in passing Tension between direction/ modifying student use of the internet Was this inquiry? Time constraints – how to fit this into seminars? Repetitive? Will the students do it without chasing?

23. Student feedback ‘Reading a primary and secondary source made me well prepared for the seminars.’ ‘The delicious website was really useful, although sometimes it takes a little looking around to find really useful sources.’ ‘The delicious site was useful as a compilation of resources and to generate discussion about the use of primary materials.’ ‘doing my own research on the internet was good/ useful.’ ‘[..] the blog was useful as it meant that one could direct one's thinking during reading by seeing what other people had asked, and if you came up with questions yourself it confirmed that you had understood and engaged with the material/topic. The blog was also a good framework for seminar work.’

24. Student feedback ‘The delicious site, whilst I'm sure was very useful to some people, wasn't very useful for me. Even though there were lots of resources in one place online, I still preferred consulting the reading list in the course handbook to find reading for seminars/essays.’ ‘[delicious was] helpful as it made sure I did some meaningful reading... If I'm honest I didn't look at anyone else's entries generally as I found useful sites on my own that I used. But even if I haven't gone back to it much it was still helpful to have that incentive to do some reading’ ‘Initially preparation each week was very high but this deteriorated over time.’

25. ‘I assume this [the blog] was quite helpful for you to see what direction to lead the seminars in. Some weeks I found myself searching for a question rather than burning to ask one and other weeks I did put up genuine questions that I thought would be helpful for everyone. A bit mixed for me but I still think it was worthwhile and got you thinking about the topic before the seminar which would help you come along with clarified thoughts.’

26. 2009 course Based on feedback and reflection I decided to move to a different platform that could host both the blog-type function and the bookmarking/ tagging I chose diigo.com

27. Discussion forum Replaced blog Primarily a place for students to post pre-seminar questions or other activities (feedback) Place to upload weekly homework/ handouts

29. Tagging

31. Pre course survey Majority of student preferred for questions to be set by the tutor, although: ‘It is good to set the questions ourselves as I feel it makes us think more about what we're doing and we're able to focus on areas which interest us.’ All students: thought that questions were either ‘very’ or ‘quite’ important to their learning. were happy with setting questions for seminars. were positive about the opportunity to use an online discussion forum for questioning and interaction. They could see the potential benefits from working together and sharing information and perspectives: ‘I feel fine with the forum as you can see other questions, topics that interest your peers or aspects that they find difficult also.’ ‘Multiple input should create a more in depth analysis so it should be beneficial.’ There was some concern about technical aspects of the software, getting used to using it.

33. We ended up (over 11 seminars) with 147 posts to the forum

38. Setting questions – 3 conceptions By tutor: Helps to give direction; reassuring; makes sure what you are doing is relevant and useful; gives focus to research; links to lectures; student questions might not be challenging enough; more likely to lead to a ‘good’ answer; helps with new areas of study Mixture: “A mixture is best to make sure key themes are not overlooked by setting your own questions gets yourself and others thinking more.” “A varied set of questions from myself and the tutor would be good as I could concentrate on areas I enjoyed as well as looking at questions I may have not considered.” By students: More interest; more control over learning; opens up discussion; allows exploration of topics students are uncertain of “I like the fact that we've got to set our own questions as it means that we focus on areas that I or other members of the group are unsure about. I think I've learnt more from it.” “I prefer setting the questions myself, mainly because it forces us to think about the issues in different ways; with the diigo site because people are reading sources in different ways so a wider range of issues comes up.”

39. Changing conceptions: “I used to prefer having the questions set for me but I think it has been more useful setting them myself as it has made me think about the reading more.” “I used to like just being set questions, but now I have realised how beneficial thinking of your own questions is. I much prefer it.”

41. ‘makes you read the article properly as you have to think about it’

42. ‘It has definitely made me think more about what I was reading and thought how it related to lecture topics as well’

44. ‘it has been good to see what other people have put and there was probably more variation in the questions than if the tutor was to set them.’

45. ‘it allows you to see a wider range of issues that come up from sources - some that you may not even have thought about.’

47. ‘The whole of diigo has been invaluable. It is an excellent resource to find articles for essays and the tags and descriptions people have assigned to journals give a good summary. The questions on the forum raise issues that I may not have thought about otherwise.’ ‘It is useful as I then identify areas of the module that I am less confident with and can address them with extra reading. They [the questions] also stimulate my thinking, and I think about other issues that interest me relating to the course, not simply what the tutor has asked of you.’

49. Move from common logins to different student accounts…allows tracking

50. Assessment not as important as I’d thought in generating engagement – though rationalisation is preferable

51. Reminders help

53. Specificity of tasks (what and why)

54. Modelling of tasks

55. Bring the technology into the classroom

57. Room was important

59. Some more from the students…