Presentation from Teaching and Technology: Making Digital History workshop at Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, 14th March 2015.

1. Social Bookmarking and the
Questioning Historian
Dr Jamie Wood
University of Lincoln
History Lab Plus, March 14th 2013
Digital T&L at Lincoln: http://makingdigitalhistory.co.uk
Twitter: @MakDigHist

2. Research into Technology use in History
HE teaching
• Virtual learning environments predominate and are
viewed positively by students and staff
• BUT danger of ‘miscommunication’
• Independent learning + research skills vs. access to resources
• Limiting features
• Consistency? ‘Getting all lecturers to embrace technology would be a step
forward’ (student)
• Staff AND students think that it doesn’t help much in certain areas (e.g. team-
working)
• Narrowing/ a closed body of knowledge? Esp. for weaker students perhaps
• Can promote transmission approaches (even when not intended)

3. Digital literacy, active online learning
and disciplinary identity
• How to overcome some of shortcomings of
over-reliance on VLE?
– Use social media to facilitate engagement and
collaboration
– Design activities that require active work/ thinking
by students
= a constructivist approach, actually making stuff

4. Social bookmarking
• Internet users manage
bookmarks of web pages
online (not an individual
browser) using tags/
descriptions, not folders
• Active engagement –
students have to do
something
• Online/ social element –
enables collaboration,
sharing and visibility
See Taha and Wood (2011) for more on this

5. •Diigo
education
edition
•Private,
separate logins
•Sharing
•Highlighting
•Sticky-noting

6. Basic weekly activity
• Students find online
resources relating to the
weekly topic
• Students ‘tag’, describe
and share resources
• Then post questions based
on reading to discussion
forum in diigo
• Resources + questions =
my seminar plan
• For some of resources see:
https://www.diigo.com/us
er/pagansxtians

7. But variety is key...
Locating and bookmarking source(s)
• Find and bookmark primary/
secondary source
• Add description and tags
Essay writing
• Respond to feedback on
essays by bookmarking a
relevant site
• Revise thesis statement
from first essay and post to
discussion forum
Non-written sources
• Find and bookmark a non-
written source (YouTube;
Flickr)
• In description, explain why
this source is relevant to the
seminar
Highlighting
• Highlight and comment on relevant
sections of a pre-selected document
Questioning
• Post a (specific kind of) question based on
reading to the discussion forum
...otherwise it gets boring
See appendix to Wood, 2011, for more on this

8. What happened
• 19 students
• 147 posts to the forum
(over 11 seminars)
• 314 bookmarks, using
590 different tags

9. STUDENT FEEDBACK
1. Practical: for preparing
essays
2. Independence: enjoyed
opportunity to find
sources
3. Freedom: ‘There is
more freedom of
choice about what to
read’
4. Variety: ‘it is much
more interesting, and
because you are not
only reading, it is easier
to absorb information’.

10. LEARNING FROM OTHERS
• ‘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.’
• ‘it allows you to see a wider
range of issues that come up
from sources - some that you
may not even have thought
about.’
+ 12 out of 15 students felt that their research
skills had improved

11. Setting questions – 3 conceptions
By tutor: reassuring; makes sure what you are doing is
relevant + useful; 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.”
By students:
“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.”

12. POSING QUESTIONS AND SOURCES
• ‘it forces you to think
about the source material
and be analytical in
response to it’
• ‘it […] opens up the area
of reading to different
paths of thought.’
‘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.’

13. • Models disciplinary
processes (= what
historians do)
– [+ it’s realistic and honest]
• Develops
– Disciplinary skills:
summarising; using
sources
– Knowledge: students have
to read AND think
– ‘Generic’ skills:
technology; information
literacy; research
For more on this see Wood, 2011 and Wood and Ryan, 2010

14. Concluding thoughts
• VLEs support learning and are viewed positively
• Gaps may be addressed by thinking more about
active online learning and student-generated/-
curated content
• Not about replacing the classroom, but about
augmenting it
• Develops useful skills and knowledge that are
NOT necessarily opposed to developing
historical skills and understanding
• …and it’s fun…

15. More
On social bookmarking at Lincoln, Sussex and LJMU, see:
Wood, Matthews Jones, Taylor et al (2014)
My email: jwood@lincoln.ac.uk