Using web-based bookmarking services has been something that I’ve done for years. When I taught French, I would become very frustrated by needing links at school that I had found at home. Emailing them to myself would work, but I knew there had to be a more efficient method. I tried several services, all of which ended up going under (thankfully not taking my bookmarks with them), until I found Del.icio.us, now delicious.com.

I LOVE using social bookmarking services and have been a delicious user for longer than I can recall. Oddly enough my oldest saved bookmark dates back to June of 2007, but I know I started using this service long before then. My account on Del.icio.us is techintegrate.

When I first imported my bookmarks (many, many moons ago), I didn’t really understand tagging all that well. First, I did the anal thing and added tags to EVERY bookmark. At that time, I think I had about 300 – 500 bookmarks. I do NOT recommend anyone doing what I did. In fact, a co-worker came up with a far more reasonable approach. IF she visited one of the sites and then went to bookmark it, she knew if it was one of the uploaded sites that she had because the tag said “imported”. She then erased that tag and added in ones that were appropriate. Smart woman! Wish I had thought of that. Using this process, if after quite a few months she had not changed the “imported” tag to something more relevant, then she most likely wouldn’t need the site again and deleted it from her collection.

I found this image below a while back and thought it was a great visual way to illustrate the concept of tagging.

Tagging

But tagging, I have come to believe, can become a HUGE headache if you are not both consistent in how you tag your sites AND if you do not use enough tags to later retrieve sites you need. In the beginning, I wasn’t very liberal with tagging sites. I may have only used two tags, feeling this would be sufficient. However, when attempting to find sites that I needed, those two words sometimes weren’t enough. I would know that there was a site that I had found and it was the one that I really needed, but due to my tagging practices, I wasn’t able to easily locate it.

Luckily, Delicious does provide you both with recommended tags and with a library of your own tags as you begin to type it in. This is a wonderful feature, because it helps with ensuring that your tagging is somewhat consistent. I say somewhat, because even though I try, I still need to go into my tags every now and again and do some merging, condensing, and cleaning. Case in point, having the tags “blog”, “blogs”, and “blogging”. I know there is a rhyme and reason to my madness, but until I investigate the sites tagged with those words, it remains a mystery.

Another important aspect of keeping your bookmarks organized is to use the bundle function. This is akin to using folders in your browser favorites, but has much more flexibility. I tend to go to my bundles to see which tags I placed under them, and then search from there when mining my own bookmarks.

Of course, the most beneficial aspect of social bookmarking, is the “social” aspect. The ability to see who else saved the same types of bookmarks that I did, and then be able to look through their bookmarks is like having your own private goldmine. I hate to admit how much time I’ve spent hopping from one person’s list to another, to another, all because of a bookmark that I saved. To know that I have access that kind of a resource, that collective intelligence, is huge, especially when I can read through their comments about the website itself, if they’ve added any.

Now, after I’ve said all of this about Del.icio.us, I need to admit that no longer directly save links to this service. I discovered Diigo in the Fall of 2007 and really liked it for the fact that you could highlight and place sticky notes on pages for future reference. I tried the site, but didn’t wish to cease using Del.icio.us because I knew that more people were bookmarking there, which is a huge resource. Diigo was supposed to cross-post to Del.icio.us, but I soon discovered that it was not working properly, so I abandoned it. That was until Diigo came through with a major upgrade in early 2008 that appealed to many educational users of Del.icio.us. The news of the new features made the rounds at Twitter and within a week, I had built up a considerable network there.

Diigo has many services that Del.icio.us does not, which for me makes it the superior tool. There is a discussion board where I can communicate with my “friends”, I can create lists of bookmarks that are easily shared with others, I can participate in groups on specific topics where members save links to a common pool, and the list goes on. Diigo, for me, has become such a valuable resource that I tend to search their first before going to Google. Many times I will search my own bookmarks by tags and if I don’t find what I need from my own collection, with a click of a link, I can then scan through all of the sites with those same tags saved by my friends. Granted, the tags other people use may not be the same ones that I would use, but I have still been able to find resources that I might not have otherwise.

No matter which service you like, participating in a social bookmarking is “no brainer”. I love to think about it in terms of having a collective intelligence at my fingertips. Professionally speaking, I rely on this service heavily. Instead of the hit or miss searching I can do on Google, I peruse what my network has saved first to see what gems I might find.

Other ways and examples of using this service might be:
1) Teachers in a school or across the district who teach the same subject and/or grade level can create a group in which to save bookmarks.

2) Decide upon a “common tag” that all teachers will use for researching and saving links for an upcoming project students will do. By agreeing on a unique “common tag” and tagging all links found with that tag, you can then search for that specific tag and create a link roll for the students. The link roll can then be embedded into class website, wiki, or blog for the students to use.

3) Students who are working on a common project can also (if they have accounts or using the teacher’s account) save using common tags.

4) Teachers can create lists of bookmarks by tags for students to use. These lists in Diigo have RSS feeds, which can be integrated into a wiki.

5) The highlighting and annotation (sticky note) feature, when shared in groups, can be most helpful to teachers when collecting resources. If a page is mostly text, highlighting and adding a sticky note can help others within the group find the pertinent information quickly, as well as any accompanying notes.

I’m sure there are more uses, but these are just a few. I’m addicted to Diigo, and am slowly but surely getting others in my district to use it as well. Even if they begin using it for purely personal reasons, like not having to email themselves bookmarks, it’s a first step. The benefits of the social aspects will follow. Here’s hoping it goes viral in a good way.

Image Source: cambodia4kidsorg