Week 6 - Social Bookmarking

When I first heard about Diigo and Delicious, I didn't understand why people would want to share their bookmarks with anyone else. Even though I was aware of several Web 2.0 tools, I was still stuck in the Web 1.0 mentality, where the Internet was still primarily a place one goes to find information. I had always used bookmarks as shortcuts to my most commonly visited sites. It never occurred to me that bookmarking could be a social activity.

I started using Diigo a couple of months ago even though I was not that impressed with it. I was expecting it to replace browser-based bookmarks, and it could, but the real power in Diigo or any other social bookmarking site is the ability it gives users to share ideas and interests. I am just beginning to explore the collaborative features of Diigo. I have started joining groups to learn what others are bookmarking. This is an excellent way to discover information about topics of interest. I have not started following individuals yet but I can see how that might be very useful as well.

Besides discovering and sharing information with strangers, it is also easy to collaborate with classmates or colleagues using Diigo. I recently signed-up for an educator account with Diigo. I am going to create student subaccounts for one of my classes next semester in order to help my student work together in group research projects. I am still debating whether I should do this with Diigo or Google Bookmarks. I like Diigo better but the nice thing about Google Bookmarks is... well, it's Google.

I have heard people complain about Google taking over the world, and I do think it is important not to rely too heavily on one entity, but as an educator, it is really nice to have one central location for several services. I create one Google account for each student and that account will give him access to scores of Web 2.0 tools. I am trying to get approval from my principal to set-up Google Apps for our school.

Google Reader is by far the most distracting web tool. It provides instant access to incoming feeds from any site of interest. Because the user subscribes to changes on the website, there is no need to navigate to the same website repeatedly to find out what is new, and it's harder to miss something. I set Google Reader up in my Google Gadgets, which appear on my desktop. This means that not only do I not need to surf webpages to find something interesting, but I don't even need to open a web browser to view my RSS feeds. There are several distracting new bits of information for me to read, right on my desktop. It's extraordinary and truly is a wonderful way to stay informed.

Google Reader gadget on left side of my desktop