Sunday, January 31, 2010

Resource Depositories



According to Webster, a depository is a place where things are deposited, especially for safekeeping.  This is definitely true for the following online resource list, http://cybraryman.com/.  The “cybraryman” is a website that has links for everything that has to do with education and more. There are over 20,000 relevant links personally selected by an educator/author with over 30 years of experience. These links are organized according to the categories of parents, students, educators and general interest.  This website has also won many awards, including the following:  



The phenomenal thing about this site is that there are links for everything and they are all live.  I did not find one dead link, which is very unusual and refreshing!  The subcategory I explored was the SMARTBoard list of resources located in the technology list in the educator category.  There are many SMART Board resources here that I have not seen, including articles about professional development for the SMART Board. There are many other articles, lesson plans and links to other interactive resources as well.

In the general interest category of sites, there are links to websites that pertain to marriage, home repair, taxes, helping the less fortunate just to name a few.  I even went there to check out home repair tips.  The cybraryman is quite resourceful!  He is very efficient as well.  He even sent me a direct message “thank you” on Twitter when I asked to follow him! He has definitely left no stone unturned when it comes to Internet resources.  You should definitely check this one out!

This website is a great example of the resources that are available if a person knows where to look.  How do you find these gems?  The answer is Twitter of course!  Using social networks to discover resources is valuable.  Furthermore, social bookmarking sites, such as Delicious, Mister Wong, Simpy and Diigo, are making resource depositories obsolete.  The advantage of social bookmarking sites is that they are resources that have been compiled by people who are selected by you!  The people in your PLN are researching the Internet and filtering out the less desirable resources so you don’t have to!

However you decide to find Internet resources there are plenty out there.  It is important to be discriminating when it comes to using the Internet.  This is definitely a skill we should pass on to our students as well!  

1 comment:

  1. Sherry,
    A site with no dead links! How is this humanly possible? Pretty incredible. I love the SMARTboard, just wish they were less expensive so all schools and teachers could see the wonderful benefits of them. I think it’s so beneficial to teach students what a useful resource on the internet is and what is not. This “cyberman” sounds pretty incredible. I’m curious to know what made him begin thinking about such a wonderful resource. I also wonder how many people are working with him to continue keeping the site so up-to-date. I wish things like Twitter were unblocked in the school setting because some of those social-networking sites would be great assets for students to learn about but they never have the chance.

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