Delicious Social Bookmarking

http://www.delicious.com

Delicious.com is a social bookmarking application that allows users to save, tag, and share bookmarks. After users create an account on Delicious.com, they can tag and categorize links to websites for easy search and retrieval. Users can control the privacy of their bookmarks; most often their links will be public, but they can be marked private or only shared with specific groups.

In addition to providing users with the ability to access and edit their bookmarks from any computer connected to the Internet, users can also search or view other users’ bookmarks.

To make managing bookmarks easier, Delicious has plug-ins for Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 and similar integrations for other types of browser. Delicious also has an application that integrates with a user’s Facebook.com profile.

How I Use It:

As I began doing research for graduate classes, I would come across websites and blog posts that I knew I would want to use some time in the future. I began bookmarking these random websites on my PC and laptop. Later I would try to make sense of my random assortment of browser bookmarks and it was incredibly frustrating. I knew that I had to find a better way to catalog my findings.

I learned what Delicious.com was and how to use it by observing classmates and instructors in previous classes cataloging their links. I was able to view my classmates’ Delicious.com tags and taxonomies. I could also view the resources they had identified and add them to my own profile if so desired. It for these reasons that I view Delicious.com as a tool that supports social cognitive theory; I learned it by watching those around me succeed with it and I continue to observe user trends to streamline my usage.

When I search the Delicious.com website, I am searching the tags and websites of other users who have similar interests. Often times searches on Delicious.com prove more fruitful than Google searches because I am searching a directory created by my peers.

With Delicious.com, I am able to construct my own taxonomy of links as well as continuously add to it by viewing the tags and sites of those around me. To some extent, discovering Delicious.com changed how I manage the Internet, which speaks volumes of its worth as a tool.

r u my fav prof? lol! rotf

Some professors have started adding netiquette (email etiquette) to their syllabus. I guess what is great about the digital world (i can text u or instant message you in 5 seconds any time i want to) is also what is bad about the digital world (i can text u or instant message you in 5 seconds any time i want to).

Here are some netiquette tips compiled by David Tuffley at Griffith University and edited by eLearn Magazine:

• Don't expect an immediate response to your email.
• Consider your audience.
• Check your syllabus before asking unnecessary questions.
• Use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

The most recent student email I received was "WHERE ARE MY GRADES!!! CLASS ENDED LIKE 2 WEEKS AGO!!!" I forwarded the email to their professor, hopefully the student has GOTTEN HIS/HER GRADES!!! OMG!!!

Free Fridays - Free Wikis

My class at U of I Global Campus has introduced me to pbwiki.com, the world of free wikis. Each student in the class has to create a wiki for our background research and papers.

A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content (from Wikipedia). And you don't have to know HTML or web programming!

PBWiki is having a drive to adopt their wikis, so they have created an adoption website filled with presentations you can watch or share with your non-wiki believing friends:

http://drivingadoption.pbwiki.com/

In case you can't think of a reason to use wiki: Create a wiki for your class to share resources with one another. They will be able to collaborate asynchronously in the writing and updating of wiki pages. Then you can provide feedback to your students on the wiki as well.

Have a good wiki!

If HAL could accept you to college...

Next year, Auburn University will use Applications Quest software, in part, to admit its undergraduate class. Applications Quest software was created by Dr. Juan Gilbert (named one of the nation's top African-American Scholars by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education), Associate Professor at Auburn University.

From Applications Quest's website:

Imagine if two applications could be compared in such a manner that their relative difference, or similarity, could be quantified on a 100 point percentage scale. Using this notion, two identical applications would be 0% different and 100% similar. All other application comparisons would fall between 0% and 100% on this relative scale.

According to Gilbert, using Application Quest removes any bias from the decision process.

When They Say I WANT TO BE ON YOUTUBE

Sometimes people will hear INTERNET buzzwords like YOUTUBE or FACEBOOK, and want to jump on the band wagon. I encounter that when people want to spend little to no advertising dollars but still want a hefty ROI, all of which can be accomplished on this magic INTERNETS.

To quote myself from an email I sent this morning-

To use social networking sites (Facebook and MySpace) for free advertising/networking, you already have to have a brand awareness with users.

Example: a Facebook user may join a "Barack 2008" group or request to be friends with "Barack", but if a user has never heard of Barack, they will probably not do either. It is a catch-22.

Not rocket science, but the truth.

On to YouTube. I'm not sure yet how we will use YouTube to promote our schools.

But Duke University has done something really cool with their YouTube postings. They ask a professor 1 question about their field and allow them 2 minutes to respond. It is a quick window into the world of the Duke profs- they seem approachable, friendly, smart- all the things you'd like your college professors to be. The production value is good and after you pay for that it is free to post on YouTube! See...the INTERNETS are MAGIC!

Free Thursdays - Use Scribd to Store and Publish your Docs

Scribd is a free, web-based, document sharing community that enables you publish, distribute, and share documents of all kinds. E-books, essays, academic papers, newsletters, photo albums, school work, and sheet music are just a few of the different kinds of documents you can publish and share on Scribd.

Create your doc in any format (word, xls, rtf, jpg, etc) and upon upload to Scribd it is converted to their Flash viewer format so that it can be viewed inside a web browser. They also convert it to several downloadable formats, including PDF, Microsoft Word, and plain text. You can control the types of downloadable formats that are made available.

Visit Scribd just to search their database of docs. I searched "MacGyver" and found:

1. The Unofficial MacGyver How-to Handbook Revised 2nd Edition - written by my buddy and former Blackboard support rep Bret Terrill.
2. MacGyver Theme song sheet music.

If you're looking for something more useful...

I searched "how to write a paper" and found:

1. Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper

There are a ton of digital docs available to print (sadly you cannot edit them, you just upload a new version).

If you are looking for an alternative to posting PDF or Word docs for students, Scribd might be your answer.

Border's Discounts for Instructors!

Educator Savings Week

Wednesday, April 2 - Tuesday, April 8

Current and retired educators receive 25% off the list price of books, CDs, DVDs, and more!

http://www.bordersmedia.com/educators/