The two sites I choose to evaluate are:

• http://delicious.com/
• http://digg.com/

del.icio.us: Easy to setup an account. Since I already have a Yahoo! account from years ago it was very simple to create the account and sign in.

Digg: Another easy account to setup. Since I already have a Facebook account setup was a snap. I just used my Facebook credentials and answered a few questions and I was done.

Layout:

Layout for each site is similar. Links to various listings are in a vertical format running the length of the page. Each listing has a numerical value added. Digg has the number to the left of the listing to indicate to amount of Digg’s from the user group. Delicious has the numerical value to the right of the listing indicating the amount of users who have followed the link.

I prefer Digg rather than Delicious because the numerical value indicates the amount of users who like the information rather than how many people just followed the link.

Ease of use:

Both site sites are actually easy to use. You come to the site you prefer where you can view the most current listings, perform a search or log in to your account and submit new listings. Many news sites, blogs and general articles, i.e. Photoshop tutorials have links to add to Delicious or Digg. Adding to Digg is also known as “digg it”. You’ll find the buttons are also available for Facebook as well as other social networking sites.

Does one site offer a better service than another?

Although their services are similar in my opinion Digg offers better service of the two because you can actually tell how many people like the information provided by their Digg’s. Digg also has a more detailed menu system. Not only can you go straight to various categories but you can also filter by Most Recent, Top in 24 Hr, 7 Days, 30 Days and 365 Days.

Would either site be useful in your teaching?

If I were teaching in a classroom setting both sites would be very useful to my class as well as any of the other social bookmarking sites. Too many times we find sites that are relevant to what we are currently studying and forget to bookmark it or maybe we are on a public computer that we will not have access to again. A social bookmarking site eliminates these issues.

What other observations can you add?

Social bookmarking are easy to use and most sites have the link with the articles that allows you to easy add the information. Once you are in the habit of using the sites they will become second nature.

Here’s my video presentation. I forgot to post it last week.

http://www.tracycosper.com/1123/presentation.html

I’m not real sure at this point if I’ll keep this blog. I do have  some ideas that are work related but maybe they are more suited for a blog that is tied directly with work. I’ll decide later.

 

/Tracy

Alright, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I think I ate too much! LOL

 

This week we are covering social bookmarking. I think I’ll be reviewing Delicious and Digg. I choose two for convenience because Delicious is part of Yahoo! and I had an email account from years ago that is still active so the account creation was a snap. It was basically as easy for Digg although I was able to use my Facebook account for it. Both site look great and are easy to use. I’ll post some more about them later.

/Tracy

Alright let’s talk about Wiki’s. As per our instructions I’ll cover my impressions and/or experiences with Wiki’s and the following questions:

* What did you find interesting about the wiki concept?
* How might schools take advantage of wiki applications?
* Many teachers/faculty “ban” Wikipedia as a source for student research. What do you think of this practice?

Impressions and/or Experiences:
Wiki’s are cool but should not be taken as the final word. An example would be the college I work for. Looking at the entry for it I can see many inaccurate comments and I can see that all sections of the page can be edited by anyone. This is a problem for most wiki’s. Private wiki’s are different. Having admins who are authorized to make edits is the best route to take to have accurate information.

What I find interesting about the wiki concept is the fact that you can have people from around the world collaborating on topics of interest. Assuming you have knowledgeable people contributing to the content, and not releasing the information until it has been properly vetted, the potential for wikis is endless. This can also be a double edge sword as well. You could have a group of people who “think” they are the experts on a topics leading to disastrous results.

Schools can take advantage of wiki’s only if they are closely monitored. For instance if a middle school class wanted to have a wiki on some subject that they are studying then you might  have a teacher create a wiki and allow all or certain members of the class, like team leaders, make edits. They could be required to verify all of their edits and cite the sources. This would instill good research techniques as well as teach the students about copyright laws.

I don’t think wiki’s should be banned but they should not be used as an end all to research. Many students who are unfamiliar with research techniques, copyright laws and various other aspects of using other peoples work as their own should be properly informed by their instructor. However, if the instructor states that wiki’s shall not be used for course work then the student should respect that demand.

Overall wiki’s are a good thing if properly managed but they are not a substitute for ones own research.

Ah! A new week! I was able to clear a few things from my to-do list last week. Now I need to complete a long over due project, getting our iTunesU site up and running.

I suppose I should change my header image…

Here’s a nice article on CNN.com about cloud computing. The title is, A trip into the secret, online ‘cloud’. It has a nice video as well.

Cloud Computing

This blog is one of the requirements for a course I’m taking. The course is basically a Web 2.0 tools for education. I’m the Instructional Developer on campus so it only makes sense that I take the five courses required for the certificate. Many of the things we’re covering so far have been around for sometime now and we’ve used several in the past but I’m sure we will cover some Web 2.0 tools that are new to all of us. One Web 2.0 tool that we used in the past is the spreadsheet app in Google Docs. The President of our college had to collaborate with other college Presidents with a “somewhat” complicated spreadsheet. It wasn’t anything confidential but it just had a lot of data. We created accounts for all involved and shared the file with the group and away they went. The project worked out very nicely in the end. Alright, enough for now. Peace

/Tracy

Anyone ever watched the movie The Earth Dies Screaming?