I know that many are raving that diigo trumps del.icio.us with its ultra-bookmarking and extra bags of tricks. But for many teachers I work with, del.icio.us is an ideal starting spot for them in the world of social software subverted for educational purposes. It’s simple but powerful. Too many bells and whistles just scare nervous teachers away.
We’ve been trying to build a collegial network of users and I’m pushing the line that sharing favourite sites and links is much easier this way in preference to the email out to all staff with the “Have you seen this?” tagline. We’ve started using unique tags to tie all of the web links for our inquiry units together but some teachers’ eyes still glaze over when we mention phrases like “common tags”, “adding fans to your network” and “bundling tags.”
Some are uneasy about the public nature of the service.
“It’s only websites,” supporters say.
But as my colleague and friend, Alex Hayes, has pointed out, a long term or active user of del.icio.us does lay out their entire digital learning history for the world to access.
But the interest is building. Our switched on teacher-librarian has been pushing the social bookmarking barrow enthusiastically and gradually more and more teachers who want to use the internet as a regular part of their learning program are realising that it is impossible to manage 300 + bookmarks in Favorites! But it is weird that a service like del.icio.us which has been around since 2003 is already viewed by many edubloggers as old skool when the vast bulk of teachers are only just becoming aware of the power of this simple but highly effective tool.
Public Comment
on 2006-12-01 by jlesage