Twitter is one of those web 2.0 tools that has become part of everyday conversation, news, and social networking...and it even has its own vocabulary--tweets, tweeps, tweeple, and more. I joined reluctantly with a personal account nearly a year ago, and then got my class account a few weeks ago. I really like some of the funny anecdotes and pictures that my friends post, and I have enjoyed following some celebrities. On my class account, I have found it really helpful to subscribe to educational news sources, as the headlines come to me, instead of me having to remember to go to all the different sites and look them up. However, I'm still not entirely sure if Twitter is for me, or not.
One thing that I have noticed in my classmates' blogs is that everyone seems to equate Twitter with using your cellphone. Honestly? This is not something I want to do. 1. I have to pay for a data/internet plan, above and beyond my calling and texting. 2. I don't have a touchscreen phone or one that does lots of apps (or...does it? I don't use the web on it, so who knows, aside from not having a touch screen). I truly do not want all those messages coming to me via text messaging, and reading through all those tiny messages on an even tinier screen just isn't appealing. I DO like Twitter, and I DO see why it's fun on a personal level, and can be a great way to communicate, share, have conversations, and ask for help on a professional level. Yet, aside from setting up my personal account to accepts text message as tweets from me, and getting direct messages to my phone, I do not want the rest of it. So, it will have to wait for when I can come home, or access it at school, with enough time to scroll through. And, this in itself can pose a problem. The longer you are away, the more tweets you have to get through. And sometimes, that can be a daunting task. Never mind the abbreviated messages or text speak that you sometimes get, so that people can stay under 140 characters, or the piles of messages in a row from the same person, because they were nowhere near staying in those 140 characters.
But, anyway, I digress....
What type of information did I get from following Twitter the last few weeks. Well, first and foremost, I followed the US Dept of Education, and a number of education news sites like Education Week and US News Education. Last semester, we were following the news in education and blogging about it, and I meant to keep up with it. Yet, that rather fell by the wayside as I had to go to extra sites all the time. Having headlines come right to my Twitter client, Echofon, embedded in my Firefox browser has enabled me to read articles about changing laws with testing, see stories about teachers boycotting standardized testing in the UK, see links to blogs about the Race to the Top, and even see a few videos or comments on web 2.0 tools with regard to education. While 140 characters is not enough to give you the full idea of the article, you do get the headline and the link. And really, when you visit the main page of a new site, what is the majority of what you see? Headlines. This is what you end up basing your decision on whether or not to read the article on, and Twitter provides you with just that. Subscribing to these sites makes Twitter kind of a mini RSS feed.
In terms of who has been the most helpful in particular for me to follow, I think the two I would currently point to are Teaching Ideas which gives ideas on a range of things, from news to lesson ideas to links with tips on classroom management to suggestions for teaching FaceBook groups. It's a bit of a melting pot of teaching advice, and while some things are not of interest, the mix of information that is thrown out seems like it is bound to come in handy to nearly every level and content area at some point. Reading it can give me ideas, or may provide me with sites to suggest to colleagues.
More in line with my particular content area is Alice Ayel. She lives in Germany, and teaches French, Spanish and German, while being very interested in web 2.0. Some of her posts are in the foreign languages she teaches, and she shares ideas, blog posts (her twitter links to her blogs), lessons, links, and even teacher retail resources. In addition, she seems interested in connecting with her followers, by responding, retweeting, and asking for suggestions. I like that she uses the two-way functions of Twitter, and is open to dialogue and discussion, instead of being 100% an outward stream of information.
And also, just as a side note, I decided to follow Hugo Chavez on Twitter. He joined right around the time that we signed up for Twitter, and I thought that this would be an interesting feed to follow. Who knows? It may provide something to discuss in class, or an interesting take on a news story. Either way, it's not every day the leader of a country is posting on Twitter, so I figured, why not?
Showing posts with label network. Show all posts
Showing posts with label network. Show all posts
Friday, May 14, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
The Tree Becomes a Bush
You know what I have noticed as we go through this class, and work on expanding our PLNs? The more we expand out, by learning new tools, and gaining new accounts, and following new people to branch out and form the tree of our PLN.....the more it curves back in on itself and folds back into a bush. We created blogs, and fed them into an RSS aggregator. But, lots of blogs have links to Twitter accounts and Wikis on them. We went looking for Wikis to join, and some linked to Twitter accounts, and Blogs, and Delicious bookmark lists. I joined Delicious, and found users that I had already found on Wikis and Blogs. And then we joined Twitter, and there are links to Wikis, Blogs, and other sites. This is all a good thing, as all these links and references help us find more sources, and build our PLN. But it does make me laugh a bit that the more you branch out and the more you join, the more you are led back to resources in areas that you've already been.
The bigger the internet gets, the smaller the world gets, don't you think?
The bigger the internet gets, the smaller the world gets, don't you think?
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Reflecting on Delicious
One of the many web 2.0 tools that I have acquired a (professional) account for this semester is the social bookmarking site, Delicious. It is a site that many of my friends have been using for a while, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to check out. It didn't seem all that worth it to have another place with all my bookmarks stored, when I use my own computer most of the time, and already had them listed here. However, I think that this may be a tool I will continue to use, and work on developing a better system for using. Already I can see the benefit in not having to email myself links back and forth between school and work, as I have been known to do!
In going back over the set of links accumulated by myself and my classmates, I see many links that I will be adding to my own set of bookmarks. Specifically, I am interested in many of the "how to" links for our web 2.0 tools and the sites that are titled along the lines of "X number of ways to engage students with 'this' web 2.0" tool. So often, it's a great stepping stone to start using something new, with suggestions from others as a basis. Then, once you and the students develop some familiarity with the tool, creativity and innovation come next. And, of course, given that I have a fellow Foreign Language teacher in the class, I am interested in a lot of Trish's links. Being the only Foreign Language teacher at the high school level in my district, with a part-time colleague at the middle school that I do not see as often as I would like, any resources that I can get from, and share with, others are great!
Tags are something that I think I am still developing as we near the end of this course. I know what they are, and how to create them, and I see them as invaluable in finding sources, searching my own blog entries and links, and developing connections throughout the whole of my PLN, but I think I often tend to be either too specific, or too wordy with my tags. I have entries and links with one word on them, and others with six or seven. I'm still working on figuring out the main concepts that I will want to look for later (which seems like it should be easy, doesn't it?). I have definitely tried to be consistent with my tags, and the fact that most data entry boxes for tags have a memory for what you have previously typed is exceptionally helpful. I find myself trying to tag the big concept of the blog or link, often with something from the title, as well as using tags that are required for class, and common amongst other people tagging similar items. (The suggestions on Delicious have come in handy more than once, and have helped increase my "tag vocabulary".) I have changed my mind about the tags I'm using, either to simplify or be more specific for myself, or because I saw what others were using, and it seemed more logical. Being consistent seems the best idea to me, as does finding the main idea of what you are tagging. While more tags help something to be found in more ways, a few accurate tags seem like a better idea than multiple vague tags. This would be something that I would try and impart to students. The two important ideas in tagging are consistency and accuracy.
Tag bundles are something that I did not use very much, but I did set up a bundle titled "class" where I combined everything that I tagged with both "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" into one group. This helped me to organize the links that I had bookmarked for class. That way I knew how many links I had shared, and which categories I had bookmarked most for my web 2.0 wiki page. I see tag bundles being useful in education for projects. Not all websites related to one research project will carry the same tags, as they might be for different areas of the project. Or, perhaps, a teacher/student will realize that links they had previously marked for something else are now relevant for a new set of research. By making a new bundle, they can combine the sets of links that they think they will work with, and they can click on that bundle to get the list up, instead of having to search for each tag separately. A few minutes to set up a bundle will save time when sharing links, and when returning to the list to find additional links.
My tag cloud at this point is not very large. The class tags of "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" are the dominant tags, but after that I have "technology," "flickr," "video," and "youtube." It gives a visual representation that my Delicious use has thus far been dominated by work for this current class. I would like to broaden that, and start to get some content area tags showing more prominently. I'm just starting with Delicious, and it may be interesting to see where my tags, clouds, bundles, lists, subscriptions, and networks grow from here.
Annotations are a great feature on Delicious! When you get the link for a page and the title shows up in your bookmark, it only gives you a basic understanding of what is on the web page. So often, we bookmark sites because there is a specific example, link, video, or other small piece of information on the page, that we may forget about that when we go back days, weeks, or months later. Even if it was very generic, I found myself jotting a note down every time I made a link. That way, I can get into the habit, and when there is something small and hidden on a page that I want to revisit, I will remember to write about it.
Using Delicious to connect with others that have similar interests is actually quite easy. The most basic way to go about this is to do a search for links of interest and find users who have made those links, or to click on your more frequent tags and see who else is using them. One of the people that I found when searching for Foreign Language tags ended up being the person who runs the Wiki that I had joined a few weeks ago. She uses the same username on both sites, and I followed her on Delicious. She is constantly adding activities relating to both Spanish and Foreign Language teaching, and even following someone who teaches a different language can yield activities and ideas that can easily be transferred. Once I found this person, I added her to my network. I like that your network list shows up on the side of the Delicious page, so that you can see who you are following, as well as who is following you (indicated by flags next to usernames). This allows you the chance to go right to a person's feed, by clicking on their username. In addition, you can use the messenger to share links personally with another user that you think will find them of particular interest. (I also really like that the tagging/bookmarking data entry box has a box to "share" with others right away. It's easy to see a site and thing "Oh! She'll love this." And you can enter that in, and send it to them right away. It makes the site that much more social, that you can share links within it, instead of having to bookmark them and then email the person to go look.)
I think that Delicious affords a great opportunity for sharing lists of links with others, whether it be students, colleagues, or friends. Common tags will allow groups to subscribe to certain sets of links, and tag bundles can put related groups of links together. Creating these common tags and subscriptions would be an excellent way for students to collaboratively build up a set of resources for a project, and for a teacher to give the students a base set of sites to begin with. Teachers could make a subscription/tag that would allow them to share resources amongst each other in a department, building, or district. And friends can easily share links on common interests. And, as I mentioned before, using the message feature on Delicious allows you to send a link to an individual--whether it be a link to a certain content-area specific page for a colleague, or a site that pertains to a particular student's project, or a link that a friend would find really entertaining. The collaborative nature of Delicious allows people to connect, share, and work in groups, and any time that you can do one step and have multiple people see it, it helps everyone out.
(As a sidenote, I happened to be trying to use Delicious at school today (I must admit, for the first time) and I realized that I am unable to access it. When I signed up, it sent me to sign in via Yahoo, which I never thought about as I was doing it. However, being predominantly thought of for games and email, Yahoo is blocked at school. So, because I have to use that briefly to get into Delicious, I am unable to use Delicious at the moment at work. I think I will have to ask our tech guy about that, and see if he can unblock Yahoo on my computer, as I do have a specific, academic reason for the request.)
In going back over the set of links accumulated by myself and my classmates, I see many links that I will be adding to my own set of bookmarks. Specifically, I am interested in many of the "how to" links for our web 2.0 tools and the sites that are titled along the lines of "X number of ways to engage students with 'this' web 2.0" tool. So often, it's a great stepping stone to start using something new, with suggestions from others as a basis. Then, once you and the students develop some familiarity with the tool, creativity and innovation come next. And, of course, given that I have a fellow Foreign Language teacher in the class, I am interested in a lot of Trish's links. Being the only Foreign Language teacher at the high school level in my district, with a part-time colleague at the middle school that I do not see as often as I would like, any resources that I can get from, and share with, others are great!
Tags are something that I think I am still developing as we near the end of this course. I know what they are, and how to create them, and I see them as invaluable in finding sources, searching my own blog entries and links, and developing connections throughout the whole of my PLN, but I think I often tend to be either too specific, or too wordy with my tags. I have entries and links with one word on them, and others with six or seven. I'm still working on figuring out the main concepts that I will want to look for later (which seems like it should be easy, doesn't it?). I have definitely tried to be consistent with my tags, and the fact that most data entry boxes for tags have a memory for what you have previously typed is exceptionally helpful. I find myself trying to tag the big concept of the blog or link, often with something from the title, as well as using tags that are required for class, and common amongst other people tagging similar items. (The suggestions on Delicious have come in handy more than once, and have helped increase my "tag vocabulary".) I have changed my mind about the tags I'm using, either to simplify or be more specific for myself, or because I saw what others were using, and it seemed more logical. Being consistent seems the best idea to me, as does finding the main idea of what you are tagging. While more tags help something to be found in more ways, a few accurate tags seem like a better idea than multiple vague tags. This would be something that I would try and impart to students. The two important ideas in tagging are consistency and accuracy.
Tag bundles are something that I did not use very much, but I did set up a bundle titled "class" where I combined everything that I tagged with both "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" into one group. This helped me to organize the links that I had bookmarked for class. That way I knew how many links I had shared, and which categories I had bookmarked most for my web 2.0 wiki page. I see tag bundles being useful in education for projects. Not all websites related to one research project will carry the same tags, as they might be for different areas of the project. Or, perhaps, a teacher/student will realize that links they had previously marked for something else are now relevant for a new set of research. By making a new bundle, they can combine the sets of links that they think they will work with, and they can click on that bundle to get the list up, instead of having to search for each tag separately. A few minutes to set up a bundle will save time when sharing links, and when returning to the list to find additional links.
My tag cloud at this point is not very large. The class tags of "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" are the dominant tags, but after that I have "technology," "flickr," "video," and "youtube." It gives a visual representation that my Delicious use has thus far been dominated by work for this current class. I would like to broaden that, and start to get some content area tags showing more prominently. I'm just starting with Delicious, and it may be interesting to see where my tags, clouds, bundles, lists, subscriptions, and networks grow from here.
Annotations are a great feature on Delicious! When you get the link for a page and the title shows up in your bookmark, it only gives you a basic understanding of what is on the web page. So often, we bookmark sites because there is a specific example, link, video, or other small piece of information on the page, that we may forget about that when we go back days, weeks, or months later. Even if it was very generic, I found myself jotting a note down every time I made a link. That way, I can get into the habit, and when there is something small and hidden on a page that I want to revisit, I will remember to write about it.
Using Delicious to connect with others that have similar interests is actually quite easy. The most basic way to go about this is to do a search for links of interest and find users who have made those links, or to click on your more frequent tags and see who else is using them. One of the people that I found when searching for Foreign Language tags ended up being the person who runs the Wiki that I had joined a few weeks ago. She uses the same username on both sites, and I followed her on Delicious. She is constantly adding activities relating to both Spanish and Foreign Language teaching, and even following someone who teaches a different language can yield activities and ideas that can easily be transferred. Once I found this person, I added her to my network. I like that your network list shows up on the side of the Delicious page, so that you can see who you are following, as well as who is following you (indicated by flags next to usernames). This allows you the chance to go right to a person's feed, by clicking on their username. In addition, you can use the messenger to share links personally with another user that you think will find them of particular interest. (I also really like that the tagging/bookmarking data entry box has a box to "share" with others right away. It's easy to see a site and thing "Oh! She'll love this." And you can enter that in, and send it to them right away. It makes the site that much more social, that you can share links within it, instead of having to bookmark them and then email the person to go look.)
I think that Delicious affords a great opportunity for sharing lists of links with others, whether it be students, colleagues, or friends. Common tags will allow groups to subscribe to certain sets of links, and tag bundles can put related groups of links together. Creating these common tags and subscriptions would be an excellent way for students to collaboratively build up a set of resources for a project, and for a teacher to give the students a base set of sites to begin with. Teachers could make a subscription/tag that would allow them to share resources amongst each other in a department, building, or district. And friends can easily share links on common interests. And, as I mentioned before, using the message feature on Delicious allows you to send a link to an individual--whether it be a link to a certain content-area specific page for a colleague, or a site that pertains to a particular student's project, or a link that a friend would find really entertaining. The collaborative nature of Delicious allows people to connect, share, and work in groups, and any time that you can do one step and have multiple people see it, it helps everyone out.
(As a sidenote, I happened to be trying to use Delicious at school today (I must admit, for the first time) and I realized that I am unable to access it. When I signed up, it sent me to sign in via Yahoo, which I never thought about as I was doing it. However, being predominantly thought of for games and email, Yahoo is blocked at school. So, because I have to use that briefly to get into Delicious, I am unable to use Delicious at the moment at work. I think I will have to ask our tech guy about that, and see if he can unblock Yahoo on my computer, as I do have a specific, academic reason for the request.)
Saturday, May 1, 2010
So, I have had a personal Twitter account for a while now. I held out thinking it was kind of stupid for months after my friends started to get accounts, and eventually was "peer pressured" into it, as so much of their conversation moved away from e-mail and other social networking sites that I was missing out on things. As a personal web 2.0 tool, I have really just used it to keep up to date with people, share personal updates and occasional pictures and links, and to follow some celebrities.
Thinking about it more as a professional tool this week was a bit of a change, and made me think about it in a different way. At first, I really couldn't see how Twitter would be all that useful as an educational tool. I joined up and found a few specific users to follow based upon my professional interests, but was thinking, really, I could do that kind of thing with following a blog. But, with a blog, you may have to read the whole thing when, in essence, all that person is really sharing is a link. Twitter is perfect for this! Also, in one of our recent MSE-PD classes, we were following educational new sites. Now, I still check those sites much more regularly than I ever did before, but it takes more time and I often forget. And what is it that we see on an educational news site when we first visit? The headlines! I found a few of these same sites that I was looking at before--like Education Week--on Twitter, and they deliver exactly that to you, the headlines. You get it sent straight to you, similar to the RSS feed for blogs, and you can pick and choose which ones you go read. Also, using hashtags, I looked up the topic #edchat (mentioned in the Twitter panel video in our D2L page). Hashtags are great to organize discussions, but this one has been taken a whole step farther, with a schedule time of Tuesdays at 6 PM CST. They have a different topic each week, and often try to get experts in. They had Alfie Kohn involved the week they discussed homework. And if you miss the chat, they have even created an EdChat Wiki to share the information from each week. I had thought about Twitter as sharing ideas and links, and being more of a network and resource for teachers, but the scheduled discussions and news sources that you can bring to your computer without having to go out and look are fantastic!
Many of the same things apply to students with Twitter. They can subscribe to users on Twitter that are of academic interest to them, and they can follow topics and perhaps even conversations with hashtags. Also, as far as receiving information from school, there are many ways that Twitter could be used in the classroom. Teachers can post homework for absent students, links to resources, or reminders about assignments. As a foreign language teacher I can think of ways that students could play word or vocabulary games via Twitter. Maybe I send out a verb and a form. The next student has to conjugate it, and then put out another verb and form. Or, we play scattergories, where I send out a category, and they all have to answer with a vocabulary word that fits in that category. I have also in class given them longer words on the board where they need to rearrange letters to make other words, or we have broken into groups where one group gives a word, and the other group must come up with a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word. All these little things that we may not have time for in class could be a fun way for them to use the computer and practice, without really thinking of it as "work." Or, if it were something longer, I could put out a sentence prompt for a journal or blog entry, or link to a picture or video they have to narrate. Or...I'm just thinking now. Maybe, this could provide a type of "office hours." A teacher could set aside a time frame where they will actively be online, or a time when they will stop taking questions. Students could all send questions via twitter, and then the teacher could answer them all. This would provide an excellent resource for them to get their questions answered, and then almost a FAQ for the other students as they work on their assignment or study.
I also like the idea that both teachers and students have the opportunity to reach out to experts. Whether or not a response is received is one thing, but it is a fairly low-stress environment to reach out, and see what you can get back. EdChat has had Alfie Kohn in a discussion, and in my personal use, I have had exchanges with Dee Snider and Lita Ford (I'm a big rock music fan!). You just never know who you might be able to talk with, and what information they might help you with.
Or...there's always a real basic, yet informative way to use Twitter....as a bulletin board/announcement space. I was searching for some Twitter uses and came across this feed for Buhler High School. It is the school's account for Twitter updates. Could be an easy way to convey general announcements, or even things like school closings for Snow Days.
Thinking about it more as a professional tool this week was a bit of a change, and made me think about it in a different way. At first, I really couldn't see how Twitter would be all that useful as an educational tool. I joined up and found a few specific users to follow based upon my professional interests, but was thinking, really, I could do that kind of thing with following a blog. But, with a blog, you may have to read the whole thing when, in essence, all that person is really sharing is a link. Twitter is perfect for this! Also, in one of our recent MSE-PD classes, we were following educational new sites. Now, I still check those sites much more regularly than I ever did before, but it takes more time and I often forget. And what is it that we see on an educational news site when we first visit? The headlines! I found a few of these same sites that I was looking at before--like Education Week--on Twitter, and they deliver exactly that to you, the headlines. You get it sent straight to you, similar to the RSS feed for blogs, and you can pick and choose which ones you go read. Also, using hashtags, I looked up the topic #edchat (mentioned in the Twitter panel video in our D2L page). Hashtags are great to organize discussions, but this one has been taken a whole step farther, with a schedule time of Tuesdays at 6 PM CST. They have a different topic each week, and often try to get experts in. They had Alfie Kohn involved the week they discussed homework. And if you miss the chat, they have even created an EdChat Wiki to share the information from each week. I had thought about Twitter as sharing ideas and links, and being more of a network and resource for teachers, but the scheduled discussions and news sources that you can bring to your computer without having to go out and look are fantastic!
Many of the same things apply to students with Twitter. They can subscribe to users on Twitter that are of academic interest to them, and they can follow topics and perhaps even conversations with hashtags. Also, as far as receiving information from school, there are many ways that Twitter could be used in the classroom. Teachers can post homework for absent students, links to resources, or reminders about assignments. As a foreign language teacher I can think of ways that students could play word or vocabulary games via Twitter. Maybe I send out a verb and a form. The next student has to conjugate it, and then put out another verb and form. Or, we play scattergories, where I send out a category, and they all have to answer with a vocabulary word that fits in that category. I have also in class given them longer words on the board where they need to rearrange letters to make other words, or we have broken into groups where one group gives a word, and the other group must come up with a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word. All these little things that we may not have time for in class could be a fun way for them to use the computer and practice, without really thinking of it as "work." Or, if it were something longer, I could put out a sentence prompt for a journal or blog entry, or link to a picture or video they have to narrate. Or...I'm just thinking now. Maybe, this could provide a type of "office hours." A teacher could set aside a time frame where they will actively be online, or a time when they will stop taking questions. Students could all send questions via twitter, and then the teacher could answer them all. This would provide an excellent resource for them to get their questions answered, and then almost a FAQ for the other students as they work on their assignment or study.
I also like the idea that both teachers and students have the opportunity to reach out to experts. Whether or not a response is received is one thing, but it is a fairly low-stress environment to reach out, and see what you can get back. EdChat has had Alfie Kohn in a discussion, and in my personal use, I have had exchanges with Dee Snider and Lita Ford (I'm a big rock music fan!). You just never know who you might be able to talk with, and what information they might help you with.
Or...there's always a real basic, yet informative way to use Twitter....as a bulletin board/announcement space. I was searching for some Twitter uses and came across this feed for Buhler High School. It is the school's account for Twitter updates. Could be an easy way to convey general announcements, or even things like school closings for Snow Days.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Thoughts on Delicious
As I keep messing around with Delicious, I'm finding more aspects of it that I like. I believe it was Sarah E that said she was trying to use the inbox. I checked that out, and while I do wish you could send a bit of a message (if you can, I haven't figured it out), you can send bookmarks right to individual users. If the person uses Delicious, this is a great way to do things. If you send it to their email, then there are extra steps for them to get it to Delicious. If you send it right IN Delicious, they just have to add it.
However, that said, if someone does NOT have Delicious, I just noticed a "send" tab when I was tagging a link in Delicious. It offers options to email the link to someone, or post it to your Twitter account. These are nice options to have right in the Delicious program itself.
Also, in my network "friend" list, I see that it has sections and flags to denote who you are following, who is following you, and whether you are following each other. It's kind of nice to know those separations, and have a visual cue that someone is not seeing your link list, in case you specifically want them to. And, there is the option to make links private for yourself or hide them from some people, which can also be a bonus.
I may just have to make a personal account for Delicious and start transferring my long, jumbled, and untagged list of firefox bookmarks over there.
Also, for students, I see this as making things easier for them working between home and school. They can get online for a few minutes in one place, and have the sources that they found available in the other class. In addition, so often students are working on multiple projects at one time, this would be a great way for them to have one location to save links in, yet be able to tag them for the appropriate class. They don't need 4 different link locations, but can have one list and search it by "history project," "english project," etc. And if it's a group project, they can subscribe to each other's feeds, or share links between each other, which definitely helps to promote the 21st century skills of networking and collaboration.
However, that said, if someone does NOT have Delicious, I just noticed a "send" tab when I was tagging a link in Delicious. It offers options to email the link to someone, or post it to your Twitter account. These are nice options to have right in the Delicious program itself.
Also, in my network "friend" list, I see that it has sections and flags to denote who you are following, who is following you, and whether you are following each other. It's kind of nice to know those separations, and have a visual cue that someone is not seeing your link list, in case you specifically want them to. And, there is the option to make links private for yourself or hide them from some people, which can also be a bonus.
I may just have to make a personal account for Delicious and start transferring my long, jumbled, and untagged list of firefox bookmarks over there.
Also, for students, I see this as making things easier for them working between home and school. They can get online for a few minutes in one place, and have the sources that they found available in the other class. In addition, so often students are working on multiple projects at one time, this would be a great way for them to have one location to save links in, yet be able to tag them for the appropriate class. They don't need 4 different link locations, but can have one list and search it by "history project," "english project," etc. And if it's a group project, they can subscribe to each other's feeds, or share links between each other, which definitely helps to promote the 21st century skills of networking and collaboration.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Delicious vs. Diigo
So, this class finally got me to join up with Delicious and see what it's all about. I have friends that have been using this for a while, and talk about it all the time. I have to admit, my initial thought was "Ok, that's great, but I can put bookmarks in my own web browser, what's the big deal?" I DO very much like the buttons that have been placed in my navigation bar, but I had those before for local bookmarks in Firefox.
Well, the obvious benefit of Delicious being web-based is that I can get at my bookmarks everywhere. More and more, I'm seeing this as a bonus, because it's becoming so much easier to get access elsewhere. And more than once since we have started this online MSE-PD program, I've been in one place finding resources, and ended up having to email myself the links somewhere else to use them. Delicious would have been a perfect fix for that! I also see this as a bonus for doing any sort of research in class. I find it's best to give students a few "starter" websites when we do research, or if we are doing a web-quest, perhaps there are places they have to go. Delicious might be a way that I can set up this portion of an assignment from work or home, and then have the students access that list at each of their own computers--saving time, and paper (if I were to print them out instead).
When I first opened up Diigo, I was assuming it was going to be nearly the same as Delicious, but the introduction presented some really great tools that Delicious does not have. Being able to highlight, and having it save is great. And being able to highlight in multiple colors is even better. I may want students to separate their focus for any number of reasons, and different colors would be a real visual cue. In addition, I like the idea of the sticky notes. This would be both a way to get a students' attention, or to place a question for them right IN the reading. Or, if that website is being used as a resource, maybe a sticky note/highlighting could be used to find my/their way back to a specific quote of interest.
The part of Diigo that really struck me, was that you can take a screenshot of the website and have it saved along with your bookmark. For sites such as news, blogs, and even perhaps wikis, that can change frequently, having a picture of the specific screen that you found interesting would be really useful. Sharing news coverage of a current even with a class, or even just showing something "cool" or "fun" to friends would be made so much easier this way.
I'm looking forward to using Delicious as I have already set up my account and a few bookmarks, but I think that I may just have to try Diigo out as well. There seem to be a few additional features on Diigo that would be very worthwhile--both in personal and professional use. The fact that both offer the option to network with other users is a big plus.
I think, even if these are not tools that I could use IN school, due to technology restrictions, these would be something that I will look into as resources for students to peruse outside of school. It would certainly be easy enough to set up a link on a school webpage, or have them set up accounts if they were interested. They could check from home, and find a tagged, relevant list of web resources waiting for them.
Well, the obvious benefit of Delicious being web-based is that I can get at my bookmarks everywhere. More and more, I'm seeing this as a bonus, because it's becoming so much easier to get access elsewhere. And more than once since we have started this online MSE-PD program, I've been in one place finding resources, and ended up having to email myself the links somewhere else to use them. Delicious would have been a perfect fix for that! I also see this as a bonus for doing any sort of research in class. I find it's best to give students a few "starter" websites when we do research, or if we are doing a web-quest, perhaps there are places they have to go. Delicious might be a way that I can set up this portion of an assignment from work or home, and then have the students access that list at each of their own computers--saving time, and paper (if I were to print them out instead).
When I first opened up Diigo, I was assuming it was going to be nearly the same as Delicious, but the introduction presented some really great tools that Delicious does not have. Being able to highlight, and having it save is great. And being able to highlight in multiple colors is even better. I may want students to separate their focus for any number of reasons, and different colors would be a real visual cue. In addition, I like the idea of the sticky notes. This would be both a way to get a students' attention, or to place a question for them right IN the reading. Or, if that website is being used as a resource, maybe a sticky note/highlighting could be used to find my/their way back to a specific quote of interest.
The part of Diigo that really struck me, was that you can take a screenshot of the website and have it saved along with your bookmark. For sites such as news, blogs, and even perhaps wikis, that can change frequently, having a picture of the specific screen that you found interesting would be really useful. Sharing news coverage of a current even with a class, or even just showing something "cool" or "fun" to friends would be made so much easier this way.
I'm looking forward to using Delicious as I have already set up my account and a few bookmarks, but I think that I may just have to try Diigo out as well. There seem to be a few additional features on Diigo that would be very worthwhile--both in personal and professional use. The fact that both offer the option to network with other users is a big plus.
I think, even if these are not tools that I could use IN school, due to technology restrictions, these would be something that I will look into as resources for students to peruse outside of school. It would certainly be easy enough to set up a link on a school webpage, or have them set up accounts if they were interested. They could check from home, and find a tagged, relevant list of web resources waiting for them.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Goals for this Technology class
The focus of this class is on technology, and I would generally say that I am interested in using and learning about technology. Looking over the syllabus and the first few activities and readings for this class, I would like to do two things over the next eights weeks.
As we building our Personal Learning Networks, I hope to become more familiar with the programs that we are using, and to accumulate a list of sites, blogs, and groups, etc that I feel comfortable with and excited enough about to continue visiting after this class is over.
Also, I would like to find at least a few of the programs and web 2.0 tools that we are going to be using that I can incorporate into my classroom. Unfortunately, the trick in doing this is the filtering and blocking system that we have on our internet access at school. To make this successful, I would need to be able to have the students guaranteed of access to the tools. There are some that do not have internet at home, so they would need to be able to work at school. While it is not overly difficult to get websites unblocked on a teacher's personal computer, there would need to be more justification and proven uses to get the site unblocked school-wide. As we learn about these tools and their applications, my goal is to be able to find applications for them in my classroom, that will help to engage my students.
On a much more superficial layer, there are some web 2.0 tools like Niing and Delicious that I have either not heard about, or have never used. In these cases, I would just like to gain some familiarity with them.
As we building our Personal Learning Networks, I hope to become more familiar with the programs that we are using, and to accumulate a list of sites, blogs, and groups, etc that I feel comfortable with and excited enough about to continue visiting after this class is over.
Also, I would like to find at least a few of the programs and web 2.0 tools that we are going to be using that I can incorporate into my classroom. Unfortunately, the trick in doing this is the filtering and blocking system that we have on our internet access at school. To make this successful, I would need to be able to have the students guaranteed of access to the tools. There are some that do not have internet at home, so they would need to be able to work at school. While it is not overly difficult to get websites unblocked on a teacher's personal computer, there would need to be more justification and proven uses to get the site unblocked school-wide. As we learn about these tools and their applications, my goal is to be able to find applications for them in my classroom, that will help to engage my students.
On a much more superficial layer, there are some web 2.0 tools like Niing and Delicious that I have either not heard about, or have never used. In these cases, I would just like to gain some familiarity with them.
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