Week 1 - Any Questions or Comments about Social Bookmarking? - 275 views
started by Carla Arena on 05 Jun 08
started by Carla Arena on 05 Jun 08
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How does it affect our teaching practices?
What are its advantages and disadvantages?
What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
1. How does it affect our teaching practices?
In my case particularly, it has changed the way I handle internet. I use Web 2.0 tools a lot (especially after BaW) and I need to keep track of the sites I like. I didn't like using 'favourites' before knowing 'bookmarking' so I kept a list in Word with the sites I liked. But now, I use Diigo or Delicious and carry my 'favourites' with me all the time.
2. What are its advantages and disadvantages?
I think that the advantages are that you have your bookmarks at hand in any computer. I keep changing computers from time to time because I use the one at home, also the laptop, my parent's computer and my parent's in-law computer, so bookmarking is great for that. And as regards Diigo, you can highlight and add posts to the sites that you bookmark.
The main disadvantage I think is that I get carried away and bookmark lots of pages and then I have to go back to them and try to remember which one was the one I liked the most. That's why I try to be really carefull and only bookmark what I consider is really good.
3. What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
To choose carefully what you bookmark and tag them properly. Try to use more than one tag so that when you look for something it's easier to find. For example, if you tag a page with quizzes, you can name it 'quiz', 'activities', 'games', etc.
Well, I think that's it... I will try not to write so much next time! :) See you all.
Lore
Great to see that you're a true early bird!
Thanks for sharing your views. In fact, you shared the essence of online bookmarking, its mobility power. You can take your favorite online resources wherever you are and easily access them. You also mentioned looking at your friends' bookmarks. This is where the social gets in. On the bookmarking platforms, we can really create very enriching networks of information, sharing and knowledge. Diigo is a great example!
As for tagging, this would be number one in my list. There are two aspects to it. First, add tags that are meaningful for you, for your private retrieval, and also tags that have been suggested by the group that will help others browse through the treasures you find online.
Let us keep sharing our findings here!
I was checking my mails today and saw that you had done something about bookmarking, so I went for it before doing anything else. Sometimes if I don't tackle this as fast as possible I forget about them.
It's great to see that I was not that mistaken! See you around, thanks for the great job you're doing.
Lore
You're not mistaken, just an eager beaver, ready to start!
Maria Lorena Recio wrote:
> Hi Carla,
> I was checking my mails today and saw that you had done something about bookmarking, so I went for it before doing anything else. Sometimes if I don't tackle this as fast as possible I forget about them.
> It's great to see that I was not that mistaken! See you around, thanks for the great job you're doing.
> Lore
Handling more information and sharing it with our colleagues should make us better teachers.
And in case you want to suggest some topic to your students you can suggest your own list of sites
What are its advantages and disadvantages?
I can keep my favourite pages on line and check them from any computer.
The disadvantage: I sometimes add a site and never explore it properly or forget it
What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
At first try to use all the tools Diigo supports, maybe we could classify our bookmarks, not just a tagged collection .
I'm sure there are a lot of thing we can do.
1. How does it affect our teaching practices?
Our knowledge of what is available to us, when it comes to web 2.0 tools, changes dramatically after using diigo. The social factor of diigo makes all the difference. Before I used to use blinklist to bookmark but I never really explored what others bookmarked. With diigo, exploring sites people share with you increases your scope of discoveries tremendously. The more you know what´s available, the better alternatives you can choose for your group of students.
2. Advantages/ disadvantages?
Well, like I said before the social factor is a unique feature in diigo and so are the discussions like this one. I haven´t found any disadvantage yet.
3. Suggestions for online bookmarking practices?
Take your time to explore. Have a look at what people are looking into. Share, interact.
Ana Maria Menezes
I agree with you that Diigo has a powerful social feature that you easily connect to. You connect to others, their ideas, discussions and resources. The fact that you have the Forum, annotations can be appealing to groups like ours, as well as to the classroom. I really like Delicious, but now I'm a big fan of Diigo because of its connectivity.
> And in case you want to suggest some topic to your students you can suggest your own list of sites
Dear Sus,
That's what I do nowadays for my online course, for example. Every online resource we explore is bookmarked and shared with the group. I used to do that in delicious. Now, I'll have to see how to do that here. In delicious I could easily organize my tags in Weeks (bundling tags). Here, I think you can use the "lists" to organize your tags in a meaningful way to the group. I'll check that.
> At first try to use all the tools Diigo supports, maybe we could classify our bookmarks, not just a tagged collection .
There's an option for the administrator that he can decide to have a tag dictionary for the group, or let the group add the tags and these tags are suggested to the one sharing a link with the group. Here, I don't see the option of "lists", but they are available in your personal account.
> As we take off in the learning journey through Diigo, share your ideas on social bookmarking, your questions, your insights here.
>
> How does it affect our teaching practices?
> What are its advantages and disadvantages?
> What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
Hello dear all,
I am really happy I am part of this amazing group - LWCers! Answering Carla Arena's questions....
I have just started exploring the "bookmarking world" I first thought that my "favourits" would be enough for me until I have realised that sharing is everything!! So I started thinking that an online space would be great.... So here I am....
I think it affects our teaching practice positively when we think that is means sharing and following people that has the same interests that we do! We can learn a lot in this space and share with our students :-)
An advantage I find great is the fact we can "visit" our friends' bookmarking and learn a lot with them. A disadvantage I think are the messages I wouldn't like to read and they keep been shown in my sidebar (like_4 unread messages) maybe there is a way to "get rid of them" but I haven't found yet....
I would suggest: Explore and Share :-)
Camila Sousa
[warning-- I seem to be in a rambling mood today -- hope this makes sense, and that someone will wend their way all the way through it!]
Kudos to all who are making "LWCers" happen -- I greatly enjoyed having a month to play with Twitter, and although I did not complete all the tasks, I am now much more confident and competent in at least being able to talk about it, and 'feel' some of the benefits, some of the 'don't-like-this-so-much' aspects...
And now, on to diigo! Both Twitter and diigo were added to my 'explore some day' lists during TESOL's January EVOs (Electronic Village Online sessions). Being teased back into exploring them, with company!, is wonderful. It is the connections (connectivity) that makes my online experiences meaningful.
I'm blathering a bit, but will now (finally!) attempt to respond to Carla's questions:
> How does it affect our teaching practices?
So far, only intangibly -- with each new familiarization with something new online, I feel more competent, confident and energized -- all positively impacting my teaching/facilitating experiences.
I have not yet twittered with students nor attempted to teach/introduce diigo.
I'll learn a bit more and practice a bit more first...
> What are its advantages and disadvantages? [and a few questions of mine thrown in]
I agree with comments others have made about the mobility -- watching the video, this is what 'sold' me to make time for LWCers again this month.
As others have mentioned, I too dislike 'favorites' [I've a miles-long list -- one in Firefox, one in Explorer, and not well-organized -- and too often forgotten/neglected, re-googled.
I just this past month started using del.icio.us -- shame on me. I was introduced to it months ago (years ago? has it been that long?) but my first foray was a bust -- I remember being confused, not understanding, and crossing it off my list as a 'not for me.' Silly me!
This time around, I'm SOLD! I've been using it several times each week, to quickly relocate sites that I have wanted to revisit. Also, I've enjoyed viewing the numbers of others who've tagged the same sites.
So, I'm very intrigued about the possibility of making notes and using them in diigo. I quite often type notes in Word about a site, then save a word file for future reference -- but then _finding_ that reference, quickly enough to be useful -- or even _remembering_ to look for the reference document, sigh...
So, having "post-its" of my own style sounds like a winner idea. I've yet to try it, but this month, this group, should me make that happen (so I trust)! I am curious about whether "the whole world" will always be able to view my post-its, or whether there's a way to mark them private only? I suspect I'll find out as I play with using them ---
If this idea works (if I like using the post-its), I see this a a phenomenal skill to teach everyone and anyone I know who uses the internet!
Privacy concerns and 'popup' concerns are at the back of my mind... I find PageFlakes (so far) too busy and distracting.
I've always disliked pop-ups. So, will I be bothered by the clutter of diigo? As an example of my hypocritical eclectic tendencies, I do not find Moodle too cluttered, and many folks do. And many folks find my desktop style too cluttered! C'est la vie.
> What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
I agree on the tagging comments -- already I'm learning through del.icio.us that as Carla advocated, creating tags that make sense to me, as well as creating tags that might mesh with others' labeling, is a best practice.
>Trying to see if I'm getting the idea correctly here, of what benefits a diigo might have -- if an organization's main site has diigo -- then others could post notes to the attention of the webmaster, alerting to a misspelling, a link that isn't working, etc..??? If this is done, would every visitor to that site see that post-it, or only diigo-users? And if the diigo comment/post-it were acted upon, could it be deleted or hidden? These are thoughts tumbling through my mind. [and I don't necessarily expect answers here for any questions which will 'answer themselves' as we continue our diigo journey!]
>probably a dumb question, but I'm assuming that if I use diigo with a secure site document (I'm presently a student with University of Phoenix Online, for example) or an intranet site, -- I'm assuming that I will be able to view my diigo notes, but others without the sites' passwords won't?
>off-the-wall question: Is there a way to change the background color so it's not all blue? I'm one of the weirdos of the world who dislikes the color blue as a prominent color on my computer screen.
enough! thanks thanks and thanks to all LWCers -- onward, ho!
Holly [aka smilin7, aka blogblossoms]
> I have just started exploring the "bookmarking world" I first thought that my "favourites" would be enough for me until I have realised that sharing is everything!! So I started thinking that an online space would be great.... So here I am....
Dear Camila, I also thought for some time that I could just keep my "favorites" on my computer, but then I realized that in this digital world mobility is essential. My resources, my findings, my treasures need to be wherever I am. So, online, they need to be there for easy access wherever we are.
Nowadays, I've gone even further, I want the social aspect, the collective learning, so that's why we went for Diigo this month.
> A disadvantage I think are the messages I wouldn't like to read and they keep been shown in my sidebar (like_4 unread messages) maybe there is a way to "get rid of them" but I haven't found yet....
In Diigo, there are tons of tools that I haven't had time to explore myself, but click on "messages", then on the right side, you'll see "setting". There you'll have the options for your messages.
Let us keep digging Diigo!
Our week with Diigo has just begun, but I see that the discussion has been active already! Here are my thoughts on bookmarking. I haven't used Diigo yet, but here are my experiences with social bookmarking on delicious.
How does it affect our teaching practices?
By using social bookmarking, it is easy to save, organize, and discover sites related to my professional interests. As for using bookmarking with students, like Ana Maria and Carla mentioned, it makes sharing resources with students really easy. this year, one of my classes is using the book, Ideas and Issues Advanced by Martin Hunt. Each chapter has a different theme, and the final project is to select one of the themes to do a presentation about. I created bookmarks in delicious to give students a starting point for choosing a topic or for getting started on finding information. You can see it here
http://del.icio.us/KGU_ESL1
> What are its advantages and disadvantages?
Advantages: My bookmarks on delicious are like my "share" button! They really reflect what I've been reading and thinking about. These days, I don't have a lot of time to write blog posts, but I like the quickness of annotating links in delicious, and connecting with others through Twitter.
Speaking of connections, I really like the networking or social feature of sites like delicious and Diigo. I have primarily used delicious until now. You can subscribe to tags, and people can suggest links for you too. During EVO, I found both of these options great ways to discover new sites.
Disadvantages: I have over 1000 bookmarks on delicious ... information overload ;)
> What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
Organization is key! Use tags, bundles, lists or whatever to stay organized. Annotate links if possible, so that you can easily remember what the site is and why you bookmarked it!
Take advantage of your network, and explore other's bookmarks on a topic. Search tags in delicious to find pretty relevant and current search results. Explore!!
Really looking forward to learning about Diigo, Carla and Susana!
Mary Hillis
http://www.diigo.com/user/mhillis
Thanks for the wonderful ramblings and thinking out loud. This is what makes the collective experience we have in the learningwithcomputers group so enriching. I loved it! I hope that by the end of this exploration, you can see even more benefits to online social bookmarking.
I was also sold with delicious. But I have to confess that after I started using Diigo and experiencing its social power, I almost don't access my delicious as there's a way to import all your bookmarks to Diigo and then keeping replicating the new ones to delicious. Neat, isn't it? We'll talk about this feature later on. Let's go little by little.
Your questions were all very pertinent and they will be answered in due time as we move along. I kept them in our wikipage so that by the end we can check them back to see if we got answers for all.
You wrote:
> > What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
> I agree on the tagging comments -- already I'm learning through del.icio.us that as Carla advocated, creating tags that make sense to me, as well as creating tags that might mesh with others' labeling, is a best practice.
This is something we need to explore as a group, our own tagging system. I just read a very interesting book called "Everything is Miscellaneous" from David Weinberger. He addresses issues of what he calls the third order, our digital world. Tagging is one powerful element of it and he asks, "Are people tagging for themselves or for others to retrieve information?". My own belief here, as a group, we should use tagging for private use, as an extension of our memory, as well as for public good.
Do you think, as a group, we could have some tagging standards?
This discussion is getting really exciting!
Great to have you here so that we can all learn together in Diigo!
I think you're right in when you mention that your bookmarks reflect "what I've been reading and thinking about." They tell much of who you are, what your interests are. The great power of social bookmarking is that it's really our "share button". You'll see that in Diigo it's even easier. I love the "twitter this" feature, too, that we'll explore.
Mary Hillis wrote:
> Speaking of connections, I really like the networking or social feature of sites like delicious and Diigo. I have primarily used delicious until now. You can subscribe to tags, and people can suggest links for you too. During EVO, I found both of these options great ways to discover new sites.
This is so true and I guess Diigo makes the social part even easier and more interactive.
> Disadvantages: I have over 1000 bookmarks on delicious ... information overload ;)
As for information overload, I consider bookmarking a way to dribble information overload. Why? If you have tons of bookmarks together with tons of people's bookmarks being tagged, you can use those bookmarks to create meaning whenever needed. You save them for later. One day, you can retrieve them and use them as you wish. This is exactly what David Weinberger says about the infrastructure of meaning, "We are building this connected miscellany link by link and tag by tag. Its value is in the implicit relationships that turn it into an infrastructure of meaning". It's an open-ended context in which we're creating streams of information. We can slice up our online resources as we wish according to our needs in a specific moment. A clear example: I'm starting to design an online course for educators for my school in Brazil. I've been collecting lots of resources for the past months, but have not done anything with them. The only immediate action has been to create a specific tag for later retrieval. So, I just used teacher_project. Last week, I got back to all I have tagged with teacher_project to make sense of it and see where I'd head to. Interesting results as I could mix and remix what I was considering for the course and my bookmarks gave me invaluable insights of what was worth keeping in or out.
>
> > What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
> Organization is key! Use tags, bundles, lists or whatever to stay organized. Annotate links if possible, so that you can easily remember what the site is and why you bookmarked it!
>
> Take advantage of your network, and explore other's bookmarks on a topic. Search tags in delicious to find pretty relevant and current search results. Explore!!
Great suggestions, as always!
Let us keep digging!
Wow, I didn't know about the forum in here. Another great feature. I am another delicious defector. I love diigo because of the groups capability which hooks me up with people with similar interests. I also love the toolbar and the speed of the bookmark popup (I sometimes have to use dial-up at home, so this makes the difference between using diigo or not).
It is very feature rich compared to the simplicity of delicious and I am looking forward to exploring further with the group.
Paul
> As we take off in the learning journey through Diigo, share your ideas on social bookmarking, your questions, your insights here.
>
> How does it affect our teaching practices?
> What are its advantages and disadvantages?
> What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
Hello everyone:
I have been using social bookmarking for a while and I think it is very useful because you carry with you your bookmarks and you can access them whenever and wherever you want. Apart from this, I think social bookmarking can help you organise your links and caategorise them taking into account your teaching needs.
I will try to write more next time :). I am enjoying reading all posts.
Teadira
Great to hear your views on Diigo. I haven't considered bandwidth issues and connectivity, but it's certainly a very important point if you consider that we are a group of educators all over the globe.
Diigo is feature-rich, but do you think this could be a disadvantage for our learners instead of an advantage? Too many places, tools, couldn't it be distracting?
Let's keep digging and checking the potential it holds for the classroom.
paul mountjoy wrote:
> Hi
>
> Wow, I didn't know about the forum in here. Another great feature. I am another delicious defector. I love diigo because of the groups capability which hooks me up with people with similar interests. I also love the toolbar and the speed of the bookmark popup (I sometimes have to use dial-up at home, so this makes the difference between using diigo or not).
>
> It is very feature rich compared to the simplicity of delicious and I am looking forward to exploring further with the group.
>
> Paul
Certainly mobility is one of the first factors when we consider online bookmarking. The social part is what encourages us to make new connections and make sense out of the tons of resources available. We can interact, add and construct knowledge collectively. This is powerful for us and, consequently, for our students!
Teadira Pérez wrote:
> I have been using social bookmarking for a while and I think it is very useful because you carry with you your bookmarks and you can access them whenever and wherever you want. Apart from this, I think social bookmarking can help you organise your links and caategorise them taking into account your teaching needs.
>
> I will try to write more next time :). I am enjoying reading all posts.
>
> Teadira
I just found this forum and see that there's already been a lot of sharing.
Well, here come my answers to Carla's 3 questions.
Since I use a laptop, mobility isn't really an issue for me. I tend to use the bookmark function on firefox and have many subcatagories (pre-tagging :-) ).
However, I do use delicious to collect links for sharing and for myself. I try to describe them to be useful for others as well as just myself.
One of the disadvantages has been mentioned already, namely overload. I've been seriously considering using one account solely for my language learners so they don't have to sift through loads of other stuff as well.
I also see a danger for myself of collecting and collecting and then not referring back to them.
Besides just sharing links with the odd description, I see Diigo as being especially useful for teaching because of the comments and post-its funtion (just tried it out for the first time!) You can guide your learners to key areas in a text of whatever kind it may happen to be and then let them know what it is they should be looking for/at.
I'm looking forward to using Diigo more :-)
Illya
A lot of ideas going on in the forum. I am eager to see the "power" of Diigo compared to Delicious or Blinklist. I already see it has a forum option but I wonder if this is just for group accounts or for individuals as well.
1) How does it affect our teaching practices?
This will depend because sometimes when we discuss web tools we assume all of our students have permanent access to Internet and this is not necessarily the case. Another variable is time. If the course is rather short and it is already overloaded with activities, bookmarking might or might not be effective. I have a del.icio.us account for my present writing course and most students have not touched the bookmarks, even if they have the password and it was suggested they added more links to our collective bookmark site. I was rather frustrated by this, but I guess they are overwhelmed with new stuff.
2) What are its advantages and disadvantages?
Of course we collect lots of links that seem useful or interesting to us at a certain moment. The down side is we might not have the time and space necessary to go back to them later. Tagging, as many have mentioned, is crucial. Sometimes mine is a bit messy because I am in a hurry but save anyway because I would like to check sites later. Oh, sure, the "Fear of missing something". I usually never go back to them, though. I will say I save and tag 95% of the time but only check links 1% of the time, especially if I want to go back to something very specific. Otherwise, I google it again and usually find it.
3) What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
Better tagging, more going back to really check key sites, not marking everything.
Thanks to all, cariños, Berta
> Hi everyone and thanks Carla and Susana for leading the way once more.
Thanks for being here with us, Berta.
> A lot of ideas going on in the forum. I am eager to see the "power" of Diigo compared to Delicious or Blinklist. I already see it has a forum option but I wonder if this is just for group accounts or for individuals as well.
I also hope you can see the power it holds, mainly in the connections possibilities and useful tools for the classroom.
> 1) How does it affect our teaching practices?
>I have a del.icio.us account for my present writing course and most students have not touched the bookmarks, even if they have the password and it was suggested they added more links to our collective bookmark site. I was rather frustrated by this, but I guess they are overwhelmed with new stuff.
This is so true, Berta. I know the feeling! My strategy in the online course I was teaching was the following. I never posted the links in our course platform. I wanted the students to explore our bookmarks, so in Delicious, I bundled the tags in weeks. For each week, I'd direct them to the bookmarks of the week. Also, I introduced to them the idea of social bookmarking. Though our course was a listening course for EFL students, I showed them what bookmarking had to do with learning English and how they could profit from them later on. Besides, I created a tutorial with the most important features in Delicious. To my surprise, some of them signed up and added our course to their network. I was extremely happy. If it could be of any use, at least for some, mission accomplished.
Here's the info they got :
http://www.pageflakes.com/elearningctj . Click on the "bookmarking" tag.
> 2) What are its advantages and disadvantages?
> Of course we collect lots of links that seem useful or interesting to us at a certain moment. The down side is we might not have the time and space necessary to go back to them later. Tagging, as many have mentioned, is crucial. Sometimes mine is a bit messy because I am in a hurry but save anyway because I would like to check sites later. Oh, sure, the "Fear of missing something". I usually never go back to them, though. I will say I save and tag 95% of the time but only check links 1% of the time, especially if I want to go back to something very specific. Otherwise, I google it again and usually find it.
Take a look at what I said to Mary about information overload. Another aspect is that I think that online bookmarking should make us guilty-free instead of guilty because we don't check all the links we've bookmarked. Who said we need to look at them all? Maybe the only thing we need to really do is to make tagging the extension of our memories and create unique tags for specific personal/professional projects.
Just today Michele Martin wrote a wonderful post about using the tagging system in Delicious to create an online portfolio.
Look how cool the idea of an updated online portfolio is!
Another thing that we will play around here and you'll see that has great potential to easily visualize what you've been tagging is the "webslides" feature.
> 3) What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
> Better tagging, more going back to really check key sites, not marking everything.
Better tagging, yes! Let's discuss ways in which we can achieve it.
Let us keep digging Diigo!
> I just found this forum and see that there's already been a lot of sharing.
Isn't it great, Illya, to have such a nice crowd of motivated educators?
> One of the disadvantages has been mentioned already, namely overload.
Please, Illya, check what I mentioned to Mary (message #15) and to Berta (message #22)
I've been seriously considering using one account solely for my language learners so they don't have to sift through loads of other stuff as well.
If you consider Diigo for that matter, you could easily set up a group and you could have the bookmarks for your students to start with and encourage them to share their bookmarks with the group. Also, I'd consider specific tags. So, if you're having a course divided in topics, I'd have a unique tag for that topic, then you could provide your students with the link to the specific links you want them to check.
> Besides just sharing links with the odd description, I see Diigo as being especially useful for teaching because of the comments and post-its funtion (just tried it out for the first time!) You can guide your learners to key areas in a text of whatever kind it may happen to be and then let them know what it is they should be looking for/at.
I think the comments feature and the sticky notes have great potential in the classroom!
> I'm looking forward to using Diigo more :-)
Me too! Let's keep exploring Diigo possibilities together.
I appreciate your dedication.
Thanks for the two links, especially the one on how you used bookmarking in your class. I will check them out immediately as I prefer to see what they are about than simply tagging them, ha, ha.
When I watched the Youtube video on Diigo (LwC wiki), the slide feature caught my attention.
Working with bookmarks to make a digital portfolio sounds very creative.
BTW, any idea why the name Diigo? The "go" seems sort of obvious but how about dii? "Digital I+I"?
Thanks Carla. Cariños,
Berta
> Thanks for the two links, especially the one on how you used bookmarking in your class. I will check them out immediately as I prefer to see what they are about than simply tagging them, ha, ha.
> When I watched the Youtube video on Diigo (LwC wiki), the slide feature caught my attention.
> Working with bookmarks to make a digital portfolio sounds very creative.
I was just exploring the webslides feature, Berta, and realized why I had tagged certain things under a certain keyword. It was like going back and finding hidden treasures, because even if you are going through the slides you can click on the links. Had fun playing around.
I thought the idea of a digital portfolio using tags a very interesting one, even more with the webslides. You can keep track of all the online artifacts you've been creating. Interesting for busy educators!
> BTW, any idea why the name Diigo? The "go" seems sort of obvious but how about dii? "Digital I+I"?
I have no idea why the name. Will keep the questions in our wiki to come back to it.
Besos,
Carla
The Acronym Diigo is an abbreviation for Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff.
not sure of its authenticity?
Holly
g'nite all
Carla Arena wrote:
> As we take off in the learning journey through Diigo, share your ideas on social bookmarking, your questions, your insights here.
>
> How does it affect our teaching practices?
> What are its advantages and disadvantages?
> What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
Welcome aboard!
You really got to the heard of social bookmarking. In fact, its power is exactly in a group of people making available their resources. Then, the information out there can be retrieved, mixed and remixed in the ways we need it when we need it. David Weinberger says that with folksonomies, we can filter information, resources in the way out, not on the way in. As we bookmark and tag stuff, the links are there. As we need them, we manipulate information to make meaning, to construct knowledge. Thus, social bookmarking adds value to the information everybody is gathering in the digital world.
Well, just some ramblings!
terry freedman wrote:
> I think a really big thing is to change one's way of thinking. The key thing about social bookmarking is the "social" part of the term. By sharing your bookmarks in this way, you are making connections with other people, and therefore other resources, that you otherwise would not have come across.
I can see you've been really exploring Diigo! Thanks for the information. We can try to check its authenticity, but it makes sense.
Thanks for sharing it.
Beijos,
Carla
Holly Dilatush wrote:
> ask.com led me to this:
>
> The Acronym Diigo is an abbreviation for Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff.
>
> not sure of its authenticity?
> Holly
> g'nite all
>
Thanks for your reply, Carla. Yes, it is great!
What I love about these mini-sessions is that the ideas are so practical :-)
Now I have a 'practical' question (as opposed to theoretical this time). I left a comment on the bamboo blog, but am not sure if others can read it. Could anyone out there who has come across it let me know? I also thought I'd highlighted it, but maybe I did something wrong.
> > One of the disadvantages has been mentioned already, namely overload.
>
> Please, Illya, check what I mentioned to Mary (message #15) and to Berta (message #22)
As for the messages (#15 and #22) there certainly does seem to be a concern about overload, so your comments and advice a very welcome. Maybe this will lead to other ideas onhow to handle the feeling of overload (will certainly add mine when they come ;-) )
>
> If you consider Diigo for that matter, you could easily set up a group and you could have the bookmarks for your students to start with and encourage them to share their bookmarks with the group. Also, I'd consider specific tags. So, if you're having a course divided in topics, I'd have a unique tag for that topic, then you could provide your students with the link to the specific links you want them to check.
>
Thinking outside the box, many of us have a number of blogs in number of places, so you are quite right - why not do the same with bookmarking? And it is so easy to connect - just bookmark them :-D
> Now I have a 'practical' question (as opposed to theoretical this time). I left a comment on the bamboo blog, but am not sure if others can read it. Could anyone out there who has come across it let me know? I also thought I'd highlighted it, but maybe I did something wrong.
Illya, I looked for it, but couldn't find it. I just added one there to see if you can see it. Remember that if you want others to see it, it needs to be set for "public".
See if you can see mine. I annotated and added a sticky note with my highlight.
http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/
> Thinking outside the box, many of us have a number of blogs in number of places, so you are quite right - why not do the same with bookmarking? And it is so easy to connect - just bookmark them :-D
True! Here, bookmarking has lots of connectivity potential, not only with people, but with their resources.
Let me know if you could see what I said on the page!
http://www.diigo.com/tools/install_facebook
The posts in our forum for Week One have been really interesting, and I'm looking forward to continuing our discussions in Week Two!
Mary Hillis
Carla Arena wrote:
> Illya Arnet wrote:
>
> > Thinking outside the box, many of us have a number of blogs in number of places, so you are quite right - why not do the same with bookmarking? And it is so easy to connect - just bookmark them :-D
>
> True! Here, bookmarking has lots of connectivity potential, not only with people, but with their resources.
>
> Let me know if you could see what I said on the page!
> Because we have so many blogs and bookmarks, like Illya mentioned, I think Facebook is one place to aggregate and share the content we're creating. If you want to share your Diigo bookmarks on Facebook, you can add the application here
> http://www.diigo.com/tools/install_facebook
Dear Marysita, thanks for the pointer! I guess it's really interesting we're discussing information overload as a group because we can share with each other different strategies that we use to tackle with info. I'm sure we can really harness all this collective knowledge into something more valuable, useful for the group.
> The posts in our forum for Week One have been really interesting, and I'm looking forward to continuing our discussions in Week Two!
I also fully enjoyed them and learned a lot from the interaction. Wait for more! Next week we'll check another feature here, the group message, which is like a threaded discussion in our individual accounts, not in a group.
Let us keep digging Diigo!
Dennis aka Denos
I have been reading all the posts and highlighting some parts I found particularly interesting. There are some very interesting and practical ideas like the one Carla mentioned about bundling tags in weeks for the purpose of facilitating stundents' research for a project work they need to do. Also the idea of using del.icio.us as a digital portfolio seems to be quite exciting. I would like to explore this idea further. Maybe someone could give a hand here.
Almost everything has been said about social bookmarking. I have been using del.icio.us for a while and have collected almost 2000 bookmarks there but so far I have made very little use of them for teaching purposes. Only this year I gave my students my bookmarks about photos' and images' sites for them to explore. I am almost sure that they felt overwhelmed by such a quantity of photo sites. Now I would have followed Carla's idea and would have made a little bundle of relevant sites to which I would then point them to. Such simple ideas often make a big difference.
Answering Carla's first question, social bookmarking hasn't affected my personal teaching practice very much yet. I think I need a few useful ideas on how to use them meaningfully with students like the one Carla mentioned.
The advantages of social bookmarking are obvious. Apart from its portability, which is really a great feature, its social potential represents the most powerful part of it. I have been tagging my bookmarks in del.icio.us (though not very carefully, most of the times) and sharing them, as well in del.icio.us as in Diigo. The social aspect in Diigo is awesome although I haven't explored it in detail yet. I have been benefiting specially from the bookmarks collected by the groups I have subscribed.
I can't think of any disadvantages but maybe the time you need to see all those bookmarks you get in a bundle every week, that's time consuming.
Online bookmarking good practices are tagging, tagging, tagging :) sharing, organizing...
Anyway, as a round-about answer to Carla's third call for suggestions of online bookmarking practices (message 1), I'd just like to add a note following up on a hint Carla dropped in message 14 regarding good things to come, where she says: "... [T]here's a way to import all your bookmarks to Diigo, and then [to] keep... replicating the new ones to de.licious. Neat, isn't it? We'll talk about this feature later on" (message 14).
I'd tried the import to Diigo function right after signing up, quite likely capturing far to broad a swath of bookmarks for our common (LwC) good, but was concerned about isolating future Diigo bookmarks from previous collections in both de.licio.us and ma.gnolia. Lo and behold, after reading this discussion today, I found Diigo Toolbar: Save Elsewhere (since no graphic or links seem possible here, the URL must suffice: http://www.diigo.com/tools), and promptly interleaved Diigo bookmarks with both other sets. Wow! I'm so happy I can hardly wait to go and teach!
Great to start exploring a new tool... I am really a newbie at Diigo. Let's answer the questions :
> How does it affect our teaching practices? Well, actually it is not. There is not a computing lab at the schools where I work so our blogs are class blogs where I guide students giving them the URLs of the sites we will work with. Social bookmarking makes my seaches easier .
I mostly use my Favourites in IE because it is very handy and I have all the info very well organized in folders(don´t have a portable PC).
I find Del.icio.us useful when I don´t use my own PC but I have found Google bookmarking and it is really great. Quite similar to Favourites, easy to organize and available from everywhere where there is internet connection and Google bar (this may be a disadvantage).
> What are its advantages and disadvantages? Well, as a good Webhead i have bookmarded lots of sites and this a disadvantage too because they are so many that sometimes they get lost or I don´t remember why I have bookmarked them.
> What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices? that is difficult. If you are referring to your own benefit, that is the personal side of bookmarking you should be organized. But since bookmarking has also the intention of sharing I think you should try to use as many tags as possible to make your bookmarking as accurate as possible.
INVITATION: on Sunday 29th June WM participants will be chatting about this particular topic at Tapped In reception at 12 GMT. You are all invited.
Nelba
> As we take off in the learning journey through Diigo, share your ideas on social bookmarking, your questions, your insights here.
> How does it affect our teaching practices?
I haven't used Social Bookmarking resources with my kids. I do use tagged resources on delicious with my staff development and sharing resources with teachers and colleagues. I'm new to Diigo, though.
> What are its advantages and disadvantages?
Advantages: I love being able to access and save online resources wherever I am and on whatever computer I happen to find myself on. It is especially useful when I am at a handson training and I am on a district computer. I like being able to tag and add a description to each link.
Disadvantages: I agree.. the biggest disadvantage is I tend to save things that I may or may not ever return to. But tags help me to find a place for them so I can go back and look at them at a future time ... when I have free time :) Also, I can't always remember what tag I've saved the "good" sites and stumble through dozens of sites before I find what I want.
> What would you suggest for our online bookmarking good practices?
I try to remember to use tags that make sense to me. I make sure I don't use plurals in my tags so for example I don't save some in a "video" tag and some in a "videos" tag.
I try to check through my tags occasionally to make sure that they still make sense to me. I sometimes merge tags so they are easier to use.
I have made some tags that I share with colleagues. I can also share the tags at training instead of printing a page of links.
I'm guessing that you have been tagging resources for staff development in Delicious (or elsewhere), since you are "new to Diigo," and mention occasionally reviewing and merging tags to make them easier to use. I'm curious about the rationale for one of your tagging practices that runs contrary to mine.
You wrote: "I make sure I don't use plurals in my tags so for example I don't save some in a 'video' tag and some in a 'videos' tag" (message 39, 2009.03.14):
http://groups.diigo.com/learningwithcomputers/forum/topic/week-1-any-questions-or-comments-about-social-bookmarking-4356#39
When I've got something I'm tagging with a countable noun, I usually go out of my way to use the plural form, especially if it doesn't alter the spelling of the root. I figured that longer forms would show up in searches for either singular or plural forms.
Would you care to elaborate regarding why you opt for singular forms?
Cheers, Paul
> When I've got something I'm tagging with a countable noun, I usually go out of my way to use the plural form, especially if it doesn't alter the spelling of the root. I figured that longer forms would show up in searches for either singular or plural forms.
>
> Would you care to elaborate regarding why you opt for singular forms?
You may be right, Paul. The reason I have this way of work for myself is so I don't forget and save things in multiple similar tags. If I don't have a plan for myself, I have a more difficult time finding what I'm looking for. Since I try to use only singular tags, I don't have to look in 2 places for a specific site. It might not be the best way of work, but it works for me :) Also, If I remember the tags I need to share with a colleague or for a training, I can share a single URL (for example: http://www.delicious.com/jenizma/tradingcard )
I guess we're all doing what works for us in bookmarking what we need or want to find easily again. Then the social bookmarking services do what they do to support us in making what we want to share with others (general users or more narrowly defined groups) as easy as possible for them to find, and select from, in an ocean of scintillating possibilities.
Cheers, Paul
jenizma wrote:
> ... The reason I have this way of work for myself is so I don't forget and save things in multiple similar tags. If I don't have a plan for myself, I have a more difficult time finding what I'm looking for. Since I try to use only singular tags, I don't have to look in 2 places for a specific site. It might not be the best way of work, but it works for me :) Also, If I remember the tags I need to share with a colleague or for a training, I can share a single URL (for example: http://www.delicious.com/jenizma/tradingcard )