Social Boomarking: What do you use?

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Teachers from the Trenches: What is you Social Bookmarking URL? How do you use social bookmarking and why? Why should these future educators in my class use social bookmarking?

Future Teachers: What is the URL of your new site and tell us what you think so far.

[Andy Stanton]

my delicious.com account is andystanton. I use social bookmarking for a wide variety of reasons, both personally and professionally. I have bookmarks for my son's homework sites (he's in second grade), for international adoption (we have two children adopted from China), for health issues, fun things, stuff I want to share with Cyndi and others, just a little bit of this and that!

[Cynthia Garrety]

I'm just getting started, believe it or not, with Delicious. I'm still struggling with how to organize the large and often overwhelming amount of bookmarks I collect over time. This site also allows me to share excellent sites easily with students, other teachers and family.

[samccoy]

I know the feeling. I often wonder how I would complete all the collaborations that I do without del.icio.us and Diigo.

[Scott Parker]

The bookmarking URL I use is from freelink.org. It is http://www.freelink.org/parkers3/ . After a lot of searching, I picked it because it is easy to use, and because it did *not* have as much of the "social" aspect to it, as something like a delicious account would have. Although there are advertisements on the page, it is still practical because of its simplicity and speed of loading. I use it a *lot* everyday at work.

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Had not heard of this one, look pretty cool, will have to explore it further. Thanks for sharing.

[samccoy]

Thanks for introducing me to freelink. If I am hearing you right, it is a private bookmarking site that you can access from any computer. That could have its benefits.

[Wesley Fryer]

I use both delicious.com and diigo, but I really prefer delicious. I have my diigo account set to cross-post to delicious so all my bookmarks are in both places. delicious recently updated their site and I still prefer them because of the simplicity of the interface.

My accounts are on:
http://delicious.com/wfryer
and
http://www.diigo.com/user/wfryer

I published an article last year about social bookmarking that gives a lengthier explanation for why all teachers should use these sites. The three main benefits I see to social bookmarking over traditional computer-based bookmarks/favorites are:

1. Ubiquitous Access: As long as the social bookmarking website is not blocked by a content filter at school or elsewhere, users can access their saved bookmarks from ANY computer connected to the Internet. This can permit teachers as well as students to continue research work across multiple computers in different locations: In the classroom, in the library, in the computer lab, and at home.

More Powerful Organizational Options: Unlike traditional file and folder structures which permit only hierarchical, taxonomic organization of websites, some social bookmarking sites (like del.icio.us) support “tagging.” When a website is saved as a bookmark, users can also assign various keywords as “tags” to the bookmark to facilitate organization and later location of that website by themselves as well others using the same network of social bookmarks.

3. Powerful Possibilities for Discovery and Location: Google is a fantastic search tool, but millions of search results can be overwelming. Some social bookmarking tools permit users to search and explore the saved website favories of other users and thereby benefit from the time they have spent both locating and organizing (via “tags”) those websites. Grade-level teacher teams can collaboratively find and share resources, student project teams can work together to locate sites needed for their assignment, and the collective work of thousands of other individuals using the same network of bookmarks can also be of assistance. Social bookmarking allows people to directly tap into the “knowledge residing in the network” which thousands of others have created together as they find, tag, and save worthwhile websites online.

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Wow, that for that information, it will help my students a great deal.

[loonyhiker]

I use delicious and diigo but mostly use diigo to crosspost between the two. I really like being able to find my bookmarks whereever I am. I have been on a cruise and also visiting my dad when he had a stroke and had to use computers on location. I was able to pull up information that I needed. I also like being able to tag information and group them together which makes locating them much easier.
Delicious: http://delicious.com/loonyhiker
Diigo: http://www.diigo.com/user/loonyhiker

[Laura Shaw]

I created a Delicious account in Cyndi's class at FHSU. I still use this site. It is just awesome because I can have my bookmarks on my computer and school AND my computer at home... or if I go to the public library--I can still access them anywhere!!!

I haven't set up a delicious account for my students to use yet, but as I create a classroom website, I will create a delicious account so my students can access the websites we use at school while they are at home!

You can see my account at http://delicious.com/lmshaw
There is a modge-podge of activities for different grade levels since I didn't know for sure what grade I would be teaching.

[Edi Campbell]

I use del.icio.us so that I can access stuff at home and at work. I have to admit that I don't really use the social aspects of the service too much. I have somehow found a couple of library gurus I have linked to so that I can "pick their brains" but I spend so much time reading my rss feeds and other stuff that I don't dig into the bookmarks too often.
My teachers haven't been too technologically literate, so I haven't even considered setting up such a site for them. I have sent a list of links to a teacher using Google docs, and she is able to edit and share that online.
Future teachers should use it so they find high quality resources quickly and efficiently. Searching the web is time consuming! It's much quicker to link to people who you've found to use good resources.

[samccoy]

I agree that searching our own Professional Learning Network's bookmarks can be quicker and more effective than a general online search. So many times, I've forgotten the url of a website, but all I have to do is access my delicious or Diigo account to find it.