Del.icio.us.com is such a cool Web 2.0 tool! I had no idea these kinds of things exist! For one thing, I really like the idea of using "the cloud" to hold my "favorites," instead of relying solely on my one computer. That alone makes the site worthwhile to me. Second, I think I'm just now beginning to understand the positive implications of the collaborative aspect of the site. Being able to see what other people "bookmark" and check out what the veteran teachers are doing and using on the internet is so great it's almost feels wrong!!!
My personal experience with using Delicious has been chaotic initally. I read about being able to import all my favorites to the site, so that's the first thing I did. I wish I would have maybe done the exploration of adding websites one-by-one to my account first. By importing all my favorites, I have a bunch of sites that don't yet have tags and it seems like there is very little classification there. Even the other people I visited who are "Delicious experts" seemed a little disorganized to me. I'm sure that is because I am still new at appreciating all the permutations of this amazing tool!!
As for using Delicious in the classroom, I think this would be a great idea for classroom research projects, in which students can collaborate with the teacher and everyone can share sites they visit and create tags to help others find their way. Also, being able to use tagging to connect with other people's sites is a whole new way to refine searches for research...instead of just using the often overwhelming Google search.
Will Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts also mentions cool sites like LibraryThing.com and Shelfari.com. What a great way to collaborate about whole books, adding notes, discussing things about the books, etc. For me, these sites will be very beneficial and may even make my job easier as a teacher. Students can benefit as well from such great information.
My personal experience with using Delicious has been chaotic initally. I read about being able to import all my favorites to the site, so that's the first thing I did. I wish I would have maybe done the exploration of adding websites one-by-one to my account first. By importing all my favorites, I have a bunch of sites that don't yet have tags and it seems like there is very little classification there. Even the other people I visited who are "Delicious experts" seemed a little disorganized to me. I'm sure that is because I am still new at appreciating all the permutations of this amazing tool!!
As for using Delicious in the classroom, I think this would be a great idea for classroom research projects, in which students can collaborate with the teacher and everyone can share sites they visit and create tags to help others find their way. Also, being able to use tagging to connect with other people's sites is a whole new way to refine searches for research...instead of just using the often overwhelming Google search.
Will Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts also mentions cool sites like LibraryThing.com and Shelfari.com. What a great way to collaborate about whole books, adding notes, discussing things about the books, etc. For me, these sites will be very beneficial and may even make my job easier as a teacher. Students can benefit as well from such great information.