Thing 12: Social Bookmarking, Tags, Del.icio.us, and Diigo
PURPOSE: To learn about the importance of tagging and how to best organize and share websites/bookmarks.
BACKGROUND: Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing information that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures, & blog posts). Unlike traditional library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (e.g., Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data in any way they want.
In the past few weeks, we’ve already explored one site – Flickr - that allows users to take advantage of tagging and in week 3 many of you used a common tag to create an association between photos that we individually uploaded.
Why social bookmarking? Well, have you checked your list of favorites or bookmarks on your internet browser lately? If you’re like me, your favorites/bookmarks list may need some pruning or organization. Or, if you don’t happen to be on your regular computer, how do you even remember all the sites you’ve bookmarked? What is social bookmarking? Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU&feature=fvw .
For this activity, we want to take a look at two popular social bookmarking sites: Diigo and Del.icio.us .
Many users find that real power of Diigo and Del.icio.us is in the social networking aspect, which allows you to see how other users have tagged similar links and also discover other websites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another users’ filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network. You’ll find that the collective intelligence of many people have contributed to these lists of links.
Discovery Activity
1. Explore Del.icio.us:
- View the 12 minute Del.icio.us tutorial to get a good overview of its features.
- Now, choose an educational topic, search this topic and click around to see what you find. (And try searching by the name of your city as well)
- If you like what you see, create an account.
- Explore Diigo
View the 4 minute Diigo information YouTube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RvAkTuL02A
- Now, choose an educational topic, search this topic and click around to see what you find. Click here to search your topic: http://www.diigo.com/learn_more. (And try searching by the name of your city as well)
- In Diigo “groups”, search for Clovis Online School and see what bookmarks exist.
3. Explore the site options in both Del.icio.us and Diigo. Click on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags they used to categorize this reference? If you create an account in either Diigo or Del.icio.us, you can subscribe to someone else’s account or broad topic (RSS allows you to do this – see Thing 7).
Now, join one of the social book marking websites.
Some bookmark categories to check out:
Blog Post: “Thing 12, Social book marking”: Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere? How can educators take advantage of social bookmarking sites? How can brick and mortar or online teachers utilize these tools for teaching?
BONUS: If you’re up to the challenge, create a Diigo or Del.icio.us account for yourself and discover how this useful bookmarking tool can replace your traditional browser bookmark list. Both tools continue to add new features that you may find useful.
Resources:
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