tt4t_012 Social Bookmarking, It’s Mmm, Mmm Delicious!

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It’s Saturday, November 17, 2007 and welcome to Episode 12 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. Before I begin this week I would to answer a couple of questions I received about last weeks podcast on PowerPoint Producer. I forgot to mention that you do need to use the Internet Explorer browser to view the content created by Producer. Roughly 80 percent of Internet users use Internet Explorer as their main browser but there is a significant percentage that use other browsers. I have not tried using Mozilla Firefox with the Internet Explorer plug-in to view Producer content but I suspect that combination would work. If someone out there has the IE plug-in installed in Firefox I would be interested in knowing if PowerPoint Producer files do work with Firefox. Just wanted to clear that up if anyone was having trouble viewing some of the links I provided in last weeks show notes.

This week I am beginning to think about Thanksgiving dinner and thus the inspiration for the title of this podcast of Social Bookmarking, It’s Mmm, Mmm Delicious! We are expecting between 20 and 30 family members at our house for Thanksgiving dinner so I will be cooking three turkeys in preparation of the feast. OK, so what is the tie in with delicious theme? del.icio.us is an Internet website owned by Yahoo that is used for social bookmarking purposes. I have used this site regularly over the past couple of years and I find it very valuable as a teacher.

Think of del.icio.us just as you would your favorites list in Internet Explorer or your bookmark lists in other browsers. There is one major difference. del.icio.us bookmarks are saved on the Internet and thus are available to you anywhere in the world where you have an Internet connection. They can travel with you. You just go to your account on the del.icio.us website and voila there are your bookmarks. Cool! This is so helpful to me as a teacher because I do a lot of workshops and therefore I am not always setting in front of my computer. In the old days (three or four years ago) if I needed to look up something I bookmarked on my computer when outside my office I was out of luck, but not with del.icio.us. Now if I need to check a link when away from my desk I just go to my del.icio.us bookmarks on the Internet and there is my bookmark list.

The second major advantage to del.icio.us is that I can share my bookmarks with anyone that knows my del.icio.us account address. My del.icio.us account address is provided in the show notes for this episode.

Tom Grissom’s del.icio.us bookmarks:
http://del.icio.us/gtgrissom

By sharing my bookmarks others can take advantage of material that I have collected over the years and it is all freely available on the Internet.

The third advantage is that when I add a link in del.icio.us I can see if any other del.icio.us users have previously linked to the content that I am interested in. For example if others have linked to the same material I can click on the section in my bookmark listings that says saved by 21 other people (this is usually highlighted in pink) When clicked this brings up a list of other del.icio.us users that have also bookmarked the same content. If I would like I can click on their username to see their bookmarks. Sometimes you will get lucky and find someone that has similar interests to you and you can learn a lot from their bookmarks. This can save you hours and hours of searching on the Internet because other del.icio.us users has already vetted material for you. The key is finding an expert that has similar interests as you. As with anything on the Internet be careful when exploring because some other del.icio.us users may not share the same tastes as you.


The fourth big advantage of social bookmarking is something called tags or tagging. When you bookmark something in del.icio.us you are given the opportunity to write some notes about the link you wish to bookmark and you can also assign a tag to the entry which is like a keyword to categorize your links by. For example when I find something of interest for my edu2022 class I tag it with the keyword edu2022, when my student visit my del.icio.us links I tell them to select the edu2022 tag on the right side of the screen and they will only see the content that I have tagged as relevant for this class. I am sure you will find many uses for del.icio.us Please send me an email to techtalk@eiu.edu with a story about how you use del.icio.us and I will pass it along to our listeners.



Tom’s Technology Pick of the Week

del.icio.us website

http://del.icio.us/

My Technology Pick of the week this week is the del.icio.us website. User accounts are free if you would like to give it a try. As I have mentioned before the only downside is yet another userid and password to remember. The social part of bookmarking is finding other users that share similar interests and you can add them to your network if you like. You can also be notified when others update their links. You can even have a fan club. Right now under my del.icio.us account I have two fellow del.icio.us users that are listed as my fans. Cool, Thank You! I am not sure who they are but it does give you a good feeling knowing that you have helped out others enough that they would add themselves to your del.icio.us network as a fan.

Show notes for this episode and previous episodes are available on the web at techtalk4techers.blogspot.com that’s techtalk the number 4 teachers.blogspot.com If you have a comment or suggestion for a future show or a suggestion for a Technology Pick of the Week then please email me at techtalk@eiu.edu. That wraps it up for Episode 12 of TechTalk4Teachers so until next time this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.