Thing #15 - Social bookmarking and tagging with Delicious

Introduction

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e. Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data any way they want.

In the past few weeks, we’ve already explored one site – Flickr --that allows users to take advantage of tagging. Now we want to take a look at how tagging enables people to share their favorite web sites with others by using a social bookmarking site.

There are several social bookmarking sites available, but the most popular and widely-known is called Delicious. Delicious allows you to bookmark a web page and then add tags to categorize your bookmarks. Many users, however, find that the real power of Delicious is in the social networking aspect, which allows you to browse and search to see what sites other users have saved and tagged. Users can also subscribe to others' bookmark collections or to specific tags to create a personal resource network. You can think of it as peering into another users’ filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network.

Start your exploration of social bookmarking by watching this video by the Common Craft guys.
(NOTE: In August 2008, Delicious had a major facelift, so it looks a bit different now, but the concepts are the same.)





A Few "Delicious" Features
  • Import all your existing bookmarks/favorites from your browser with a few clicks.

  • Access (and add to) your bookmarks from any computer! Never lose another link, email links to yourself, or paste into a document for sharing access. (Here, for example, is how I saved my Flickr photos for "Thing 11" -- I used delicious to save and tag each photo as "brownbear" as I discovered it. Sure makes citing sources a lot easier!).

  • Discover great resources saved by millions of delicious users with a keyword search, or by browsing specific tags or individual user collections. Try searching Delicious as an alternative to Google when looking for resources for a particular topic.

  • Mark any bookmark as private by selecting "do not share" when you save it. (Only YOU will see these sites when you are logged into delicious).

  • Let others do the work for you!
    • Add users to your Network (click "Add to my Network") to automatically track all their sites (displayed on a separate page from your own). You can also share/recommend a site to any user who is in your Network (such as a colleague!)

    • Subscribe to a specific tag (go to Tags > My Subscriptions > Add a Subscription) to receive all users' sites saved with that tag (or even narrow your subscription to a specific user and tag).

  • Display your own and others' bookmarks as a list or in a cloud, sorted by tag name or count (frequency of use). The larger a tag appears in the cloud, the more times that tag has been used.

  • Easily share and collect bookmarks with others!
    • Share all your bookmarks with students or colleagues by giving them a single URL for your delicious username
      (e.g. http://delicious.com/misd23things).

    • Share sites for a specific tag (i.e topic) by providing the link for that tag only, (e.g. http://delicious.com/misd23things/blogs -- where the user is misd23things and the tag is blogs).

    • Subscribe to the RSS feed of a specific user, tag or user/tag combination in your RSS reader, or display the feed results on a blog, wiki or other webpage to share with students or colleagues.

    • Create a special "shared" tag to collect resources along with others for a particular purpose or topic, for example "misd23things." If you want to share a site with our group, use 'misd23things' as a tag along with your other chosen tags. (Here is what the RSS feed for the misd23things tag looks like, embedded in a wiki page). Imagine how you could leverage this capability for student research, sharing sites with colleagues, or for the school library!
Five ways of "looking at bookmarks" in delicious:
(If you take a moment to look at the structure of each link, it's easy to see how delicious is organized).


A Few "High Profile" Ed Tech Delicious Users (Not a Representative Sample)
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Discovery Exercise

Part 1: Explore delicious.

1. Go to delicious.

2. Search for something that interests you. (You can do this more than once). Enter one or more keywords in the search box at the top of the page.

3. Review the results and begin browsing. Things to notice: additional tags used for each site, number of other people who have tagged the site (numbers in blue boxes), usernames of those who have tagged the sites (click any username to see all sites saved by that user).

4. Explore the results of your search by following some of the "delicious" information -- click a related tag, a username, a blue "saved by X other people" box. HINT: To actually visit a "discovered" site, try right-clicking the link and selecting "open in new tab" or "open in new window". That way, you won't lose your delicious results.

5. When viewing a particular user's saved sites, explore his or her tag list, top 10 tags and tag bundles on the right side of the page. Use Related Tags to narrow your search results. Use Tag Options to switch between cloud and list views, and alpha and count order.

6. Basically, search and browse around, and see what you can figure out about how delicious works and how it may be helpful to you.

PART 2: Get Delicious

Sign up for a delicious account.

Basic Registration Steps:
  • Step 1: Go to Delicious and click "Join Now!" Fill in the registration form. Pay attention to the password rules. Use your Gmail account.

  • Step 2: Install the Delicious Extension Buttons (Delicious can tell whether you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer; If you use both browsers, you must install the buttons separately in each browser from here: http://delicious.com/help/tools.
    (NOTE: If you are using the Safari browser, choose the Alternative bookmarklet buttons).

  • Step 3: For now, skip the step that invites you to import your bookmarks! You can do this later.
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Learning Activity

Complete the activity below, then write a blog post sharing your thoughts about delicious and what you learned/noticed in your exploration and initial tagging experiences. Include any ideas you have for using delicious in your professional practice. Include a link to your delicious links in the post (http://delicious/USERNAME). Please include "Thing 15" in the post title.

Do the activity below, then complete the blog post as requested above.

Activity
Part 1: Log into your delicious account and practice adding and tagging 7-10 sites. Give some thought to your choices of tags -- think about all the different ways you would categorize the site -- remember that each tag is a SINGLE KEYWORD and you must leave a space between each tag. Don't be afraid to use several tags, they don't cost anything and the more tags the better. Also give some thought to the Descriptions (site titles -- the "link" you will click) and Notes (site descriptions). Click the "Delicious" button (checkerboard) on your browser toolbar to go to your account and check out the results of your tagging spree.

HELP: Steps for Tagging a Site in Delicious:
  1. Go to delicious and log into your account.
  2. Go to a web site of interest (either perform a search, or select a familiar site).
  3. While viewing the site, click the TAG button on your browser toolbar. Fill in the notes and tags fields, and edit the title as desired. (If other users have tagged the site, tag suggestions will be provided and you can just click them. After awhile, your own tags will be suggested as well). Remember to separate each tag with a space. Also keep in mind that (to a point) "over" tagging is better than "under" tagging -- more tags are better than fewer.
  4. Click Save. Repeat for several sites.
POWER TIP: Try highlighting a bit of text on a page before clicking the TAG button. The highlighted text will be added automatically to the description field when you save the bookmark to delicious!

PART 2: Add the 'shared' tag "misd23things" to a couple of sites that you would like to share with our group. Check out the wiki page to see what happens after you tag a site using misd23things.

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Stretch Activity (OPTIONAL)

Try one or more of the following:
  • Add a subscription. Find a tag that interests you and subscribe to it (click Subscriptions > Add a Subscription). You can refine/narrow a subscription by using a Tag Intersection (multiple tags joined by + e.g. poetry+shakespeare

  • Add someone to your network. You can add Mary (memw) or Debbie (dkswartz), one of the Ed Tech gurus listed above, another colleague, or anyone else you wish. (click Network > Add a user to Network). It's a great way to pool resources and share with each other.

  • Create a Tag Bundle (click Tag Options > Manage tag bundles) to organize your tags. Bundles are really helpful for keeping your bookmarks in good order. This is most meaningful when you have a lot of sites.

Stretchier Task

When you are feeling brave, import your existing bookmarks into delicious (log into your account, click settings, then import/upload). Be aware that they will come in unfiled and public -- you will need to tag each and click "do not share" for any that you want to keep private). If you have a lot of bookmarks, this can be a big project, but it will be well worth it, and we predict you will never revert back to the "old" way of saving bookmarks.

Image by cambodia4kidsorg, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/260004685/

1 comment:

texasteacher said...

I keep trying to do this activity, but everytime I click Join Now it says a connection can not be made. I have tried FIREFOX and SAFARI both with no luck for a straight week. What can I do?

November 5, 2009 at 10:47 AM

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