My students are learning about and beginning to set up their own Social Bookmarking site like del.icio.us or Portaportal, etc. If you have an opinion about social bookmarking or one to share, we would really appreciate taking advantage of your resources.
I use del.icio.us and Google Reader as my main storage venues. del.icio.us
In a previous post, I recommended reading education blogs. These are some of the blogs I read: Google Reader
I think del.cio.us is an amazing resource. I made a screencast for the teachers in my school to help them learn how to use it. I especially like the fact that you can subscribe to other people's sites and know when they add information to a tag of interest to you. Watch the video if you want to see how to do that. Here is a link to my del.cio.us site if you want to see what I have tagged lately: http://del.icio.us/lizbdavis
-Elizabeth
Thanks for sharing this with us. This is my first time using del.cio.us and I look forward to checking out your sites and tagging any useful information
Thanks for sharing about the del.cio.is site. I thought it was hard to figure out at first then I started clicking on some of your sites and got the idea.
Recently, a colleague of mine, Crystal P., shared del.icio.us with me at an in-service. Wow! A site where I can save websites from my toolbar, put tags on them for organizing and sharing, and even SHARE my list. Better yet, take someone else’s!
I also signed up for Portaportal because I like the way I can organize in categories and sub-categories somewhat better than the bundling in del.icio.us. I like the way I can delete categories quickly from an outline-style checklist. I also like the fact I can leave a long description. The only drawback was that it took longer to add websites than del.icio.us, but recently they added a QUICK LINK window that I can leave open in order to add links when I surf. But there are no tags for cross-referencing. There is, however, one great feature I love. Portaportal can check for dead links with the click of one button.
I will use Portaportal in my Comp and Yearbook classes to quickly access links for broadcast over SynchronEyes, which sends the webpage to any or all laptops in my room. I will show and use del.icio.us for tech in-service this fall. I will also share my list with my colleagues.
This leaves me with just one question. Why didn’t I think of this?
My take--for students and teachers, I preferred a site where we could see others' bookmarks, but not get tooo social, and one that shows lots of clickable links of bookmarks, rather than reviews and such, per screen--faster for the younger kids to find what I want them to see. So for students and teachers I've used delicious. I tried Magnolia, but preferred Diigo for myself (I can tell it to post to delicious accounts at the same time, so I can choose to copy it to the teacher or student delicious accounts with a checkbox whenever I mark something). I still get a lot of benefit from watching what my role models are bookmarking, or searching their bookmarks, on delicious -- Will richardson, the Librarian Edge, Kathy Shrock, etc.
Here's a link to a lesson plan about using social bookmarking for a middle school research account (all the students used the same account, and tagged anything they bookmarked with their name--I could see what kind of research they were doing by calling up things tagged by them...etc.) http://www.classroom20.net/Social+Bookmarks+Lesson+Plans
We also dragged a link from the schoolwide teacher account: del.icio.us/gfsfox to the tag "primary" to our browser's toolbar, and then the teachers could tag things "primary" at home, or anywhere, and when they wanted students to find a resource they would just tell them to click the "primary button" in the browser.
I have chosen to do my social bookmarking with portaportal. After reviewing the other sites I chose portaportal because it was laid out simply and did not have a bunch of congested ads and other information on its opening page. I was wondering if I was going to have to hand write all of these great websites we are learning about but now I have a place to store and organize them. Visit my site at http://guest.portaportal.com/lmariea
Delicious is my favorite, although thanks to Cyndi I'm exploring portaportal. My Advanced Tech students have their own delicious accounts, and have even spread the word to their parents! We're also starting a district delicious account through workshops this summer. http://del.icio.us/Ageing_Geek