Thing #17: So they Say this is Delicious

Tagging, tagging, it's all about tagging. What I have discovered about tagging is that sometimes its useful, making things more findable, but other times-- well, not so much, it just provides you with a proverbial stack of things to go through.

My first impression of the Delicious-- really. Is this it (so basic)? So how does this work? I did have to search for the the bookmark button. I really thought that would be easier to find! Once I did, realizing yes, this was what I was looking for although it didn't match the button on the Common Craft Video, I added it to my toolbar.  When I typed in educational technology, as instructed,  I did get a huge collection of information. There were some relevant, interesting links available. I tried a few more tag searches and most of the results were valid, although there were some bizarre mashables that showed up when I typed in Nigerian Dwarf, just to see how it would work on something that is not commonplace.

My fear about tagging is that people will tag quite liberally, resulting in a massive list of irrelevancies. A tag for kids is likely to yield this:

Kids, Copernicus and Antigone, enjoying a sunny afternoon

I certainly find value in being able tag and share information with a group of people searching for similar information, such as teachers in a school. Whether I would share with my social media friends, which range greatly in interests,  and are composed of childhood friends, currents friends, work and school associates, neighbors, friends of friends, gaming friends, my mom's friends, my 78 year old aunt and uncle, various cousins, sisters-in-law is doubtful. It would be useful to share in a contained group for educational information.

Having an actual classroom bookmarking website account would be useful. I also looked at Digg and stumbleapon. I liked the setup of the Digg website. Although I didn't sign up, there were many interesting stories displayed, so I believe it would be a good place to find information worth bookmarking. I did sign up for stumbleapon. Based on 5 interests I chose: education,  animals, nature, alcoholic drinks, and coffee, I was able to randomly stumble upon several irrelevant websites. I was shown several funny cat sites, a PETA site, Jimmy the Bartender, a general education website showing other ed websites that I was aware of, a website trying to sell a tech college, and A Funny Collection of Misspelled Names Written on Starbucks Cups. My impression of stumbleapon  is that it's stumbleapon button is about as random as they come.

I think these bookmarking sites can be useful for people with a lot of time. My 70 year old  mother could spend all day there. I think it is a good idea to be able to bookmark and tag useful sites, I just don't know if doing so saves time.