delicious

Delicious seems to be an excellent way to store and organize websites that are useful to me.  I really like the way that I can network and see other user's bookmarks - especially because it allows me to save a lot of time/energy tracking down educational resources by just looking at the links of my colleagues.  Here are my thoughts on this week's questions: 

Looking at others' links: Go back and look at the websites collected by the class under the tags. Are there any there that you want to save to your own list? 

I was really surprised to find how many websites I could use on my own list that were already bookmarked by other people in the class.  Obviously we are all in the same profession, but we have a lot of variety in our day to day teaching and educational setups.  I found quite a few sites that I ended up saving to my own list - including lesson plan ideas and a link to WI government resources for kids.  

Choosing tags: How has your own list of tags grown? Were you consistent in using tags? Did you use many tags for each link? Did you use synonyms or stay consistent in your use of terms? Did you change your mind about tags you wanted to use? Did the tags used by others impact your choices? Did you find yourself using the same tags across different tools (e.g., del.icio.us, your blog, wiki pages)? How would you approach teaching tagging to students?

My list of tags grew exponentially - which made it a lot easier to organize and access my links.  I was consistent in using some links (like Web 2.0), but it was easier to start using some labels that were more specific to the site (i.e. "lesson plans" or "graphic organizers").  I think I used about 3-4 links for each site, and the tag verbiage stayed consistent.  I thought it was really convenient to link off of other people's bookmarks and then use the tags they already had - it also made it easier to categorize what kind of website it was.  I didn't change my mind about the tags I wanted to use (it was pretty clear that they were hitting the objectives I was wanting them to), and I did stay consistent between different web 2.0 tools.  I think I would teach tagging to students by explaining it like color coordinating objects.  For example, let's say I had 50 pieces of fruit that I needed to organize.  If I'm really hungry for an apple, it would take me a very long time to sort through all 50 pieces to find one apple that appealed (pardon the pun...) to me.  However, if I color coordinated all my fruits, I could easily find that one apple just by looking in the red section.  I think students would find this to be a concrete way to understand tags.

Tag clouds: Check out your Tag log or cloud (under Tags - My Tags). Which tags have you used the most often, other than those assigned for the class? 

I definitely used "web 2.0" a lot for the purpose of organizing materials for this class, but the other links that I used included: education, resources, and lesson.plans   

Annotations: Did you add annotations to each link? Why or why not? What would be an advantage of doing this?

 I added annotations to some of my links, but not all.  It seemed like some of the website titles/descriptions were much more revealing of the content than others.  I do think that it is an advantage to add annotations, because it gives a more in depth description of the website, which would increase the chance that it's going to be of use to someone. 

Connecting with others:  How could you use del.icio.us to connect with others interested in the same topic? Try this for one of the tags you used for a topic in this class. Who did you find used many of the same tags and bookmarked things of interest?  How might you use the Network feature of del.icio.us? Try this with one other person (not someone in the class, but someone who appears to have a similar interest).  How could you use del.icio.us or a similar product (Diigo, BuddyMarks (filtered), Scuttle (on own server), FURL) among a group of people like students in a class or a group of friends?

Delicious makes it very easy to network with other people who are tagging the same kinds of sites that I'm looking for.  Because I was search for education specific tags, it was easy to find other teachers who had found links and resources that would come in handy in my own classroom.  I found a user named brown.morgan who also teaches middle school social studies and I was able to use many of the bookmarks that he/she had already added to their site.  I think that students would utilize this site (or others like it) to build a collection of resources that help them in the classroom.  I also think it'll be easy for me link sites that will benefit my students and then have students join my network so they don't waste time searching for sites that I've already found them.  I think this may be a bit advanced for 5th graders, but I could definitely see it being used by upper middle school/high school students.  

What examples of exemplary Web 2.0 use to support student learning have you found to use in convincing administrators and technology and staff to facilitate use of these tools in schools? What would you need to ask them to do to support this? How would you convince them of the value of the activity?

I think that I will definitely integrate wikis, concept mapping, and image/video sharing tools in my classroom.  My district is very forward-thinking when it comes to technology, they are constantly sharing new resources with us, so I don't think I'd have to "convince" anyone of the value of web 2.0 tools.  However, if I worked for a less progressive district, I'd feel very confident in persuading administrators to allow new forms of technology.  In my opinion, the most convincing argument for allowing web 2.0 tools in the classroom is that the core of education is to prepare students for their future.  Whether it's equipping our students with the skills needed to succeed in their future endeavors, or helping them explore different options/paths available to them, our goal is always focused on the future.  It's obvious that technology isn't going to decrease its prevalence in our society, in fact, it's only going to become more and more common, effective, and powerful.  We need students to learn as much as possible about multiple forms of media because they'll need those skills in their future.  School is the perfect place to practice appropriate and effective technology skills because students can be supervised and given feedback on their actions.  Students are going to use these tools on their own, and it's in their best interest to learn how to use them responsibly in a classroom setting.