Pearltrees: a Free, Collaborative Social Library (K-12+)

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Interested in #EdTech?

The above image is from “Pearltrees,” a free website that serves as a collaborative – and social –  library. So how does it work?

Just type “#edtech” (or any of the more popular education hashtags) into their simple search box, and the visually engaging chart map of “pearls” pops up in an instant. From Pearltrees:

“Pearltrees is your visual and collaborative library. It lets you collect, organize and share everything you like.
It is a library of your digital life where you can collect web pages, photos and notes about the things you like. Then you can organize them as you please and keep them at your finger tips. For example, if you like movies you could organize a pearltree about “cinema” to make it easy to relocate your favorite finds in your library with just a few clicks.
In addition, it’s social: you can discover millions of pearls organized by other people that share your interests. It’s ideal for enriching your library on any topic you care about.”

As indicated above, the service is free, but as the site develops and grows, some new features might be available only to premium members.

Pearltrees engages social media, but not in a personal way: “Contributors are not connected to each other, but to people’s interests.” Members can found “teams” to help properly map interests and revert undesirable changes, as well as communicate among themselves via the Team Messages feature.

Also of note: for mobile learning (#mlearning, #mtech) educators, Pearltrees has already released iPad and iPhone apps. The site plans on releasing an Android version of Pearltrees in the future.

Here’s a look at what turned up upon clicking on the “edtech tools” section in the graph above:

Here is a Youtube video featuring the CEO of Pearltrees, speaking on the site’s design:

10-31-12 UPDATE

Today, Pealtrees announced the launch of v1.0, which includes the addition of premium membership options:

“Pearltrees’ launch is decorated with a few interesting figures: 700,000 collaborators creating 30 million pearls, which attracted 2 million UVs this past month.”