Share your thoughts about tagging. Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages? What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?
My Delicious
username is hdh.
Social
bookmarking appeals to my intense need for organization. I love to
organize spaces, information, and objects. In the past it has been
difficult and frustrating to me when I have tried to keep the vast amount of
internet information organized. I am always searching the internet for
teaching information, themes, websites, and lesson plans. I work from school,
at home, and at the library and have bookmarks at each workstation. As I
switch from one workstation to the next I have been unable to keep track of the
websites that I have used. Now, I can keep this information on the
Delicious website and be able to access it anywhere I am working. This
will definitely enhance my productivity.
For me,
tagging is a difficult aspect of Delicious. I will need to gain more
information about effective tags so that I will be able to find and share my
bookmarks in a convenient and effective way. As I was bookmarking sites,
it was helpful to me that Delicious suggested possible tags that I could use.
As I continue to use and explore Delicious, I think that I will become
more proficient with tagging.
Incidentally,
Delicious reminds me of another social bookmarking site called Pinterest.
I have been on Pinterest for a short time, but find it fun and addictive.
Pinterest allows users to "pin" interesting pictures and images
on virtual bulletin boards. The user names the bulletin board, which I
think is similar to naming a stack on Delicious. Users can follow other
people's bulletin boards and repin interesting images to their own boards.
Pinterest contains a wide variety of interests including education,
recipes, hairstyles, redecorating, organizing, etc. Pinterest has
associated itself with Facebook and Twitter and allows users to find friends
through both social networks. Pinterest requires an invitation, which
reinforces the social aspect of the community.
The major
difference between Delicious and Pinterest is that Pinterest only allows the
use of images. Unless a website has a particular image, it can't be
pinned to a bulletin board. Delicious allows
users to keep track of website addresses, not just images.
Interesting that you became a Pinterest user first as it is a fairly new site. It seems to really be catching the interest of lower elementary teachers. You are right about the "bulletin board" correlating to the "stack."
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see where these things go. I've used Delicious for quite a few years and my bookmarks aren't as organized as I'd like them to be and I certainly don't make as much use of it as I thought it would. Either I typically go back to look for the same few topics, or I just learn how to find them after awhile without looking. If we were to think of "digital space" as we do real space, would we be accused of becoming "digital hoarders," especially if we have hundreds, even thousands, of Pinterest or similar visual site images saved that lose meaning after awhile. Hoarders seem to value every single thing they're hanging onto, so maybe it's not the best analogy. I just wonder what it will be teaching our kids if we begin to hoard pictures of things we "like" or covet. How many images of jewelry that I probably won't buy do I really need to save? It's like the paper copies of recipes stuck in my kitchen cabinet that look interesting but I'll probably never make, but it's online and shared. Maybe that's part of the value - even if I didn't use it, someone else might. And that forms a connection.
Fortunately, in the case of educators, we never have enough time so it's kind of nice to have these resources where someone else has already tagged it and deemed it worthy of a second look. Maybe that, along with the growing sense of community, will be enough to keep these sites cropping up. This would be a great class discussion for just about any age group that is aware of social network sites. (Doesn't that start with Webkins now?)