Kathy,

It wasn't hard to set up the DelIcioUs account but I did have to work around saving to the tool bar.

TC

Signing up for a Del.icio.us account was straightforward. I think I'll have alot of fun with this site; it could become very addictive.

Kathy K.

I do find I'm losing track of where I've seen things - was it on a blog, or on the wiki, or del.icio.us - maybe it's just because we're learning it all at once - I'll sort it out eventually.

Kathy K.

I've had a Del.icio.us account for a long time, if the dates on my first links are correct June of 2006, however I've done little with it. I might be wrong or it could just have been the mood I was in back then but I wasn't as impressed with Del.icio.us then as I am now. I may have been doing something wrong but back then tagging seemed more klunky; now it's like eating peanuts. Being the links junkie I am all I can say is what box have I been living in? Stop me before I tag again! :D

Both del.icio.us, flickr, and technorati were not too difficult for me. The most confusing was getting my flickr picture to the blog. I think the del.icio.us site would be most useful for librariansto create bookmarks for specific classes. Also, this would be helpful for me to organize all the great information literacy sites, i want to incorporate in my classes, and not forget what I found useful with the tagging feature. My problem with all the sites and assignments is that my school district blocks these sites, so at this point it would be very difficult to use at Durfee. I need to do some research to present the benefits and why students should not be blocked from these resources.


Kim

I agree with Kathy K...I am getting lost on the location of the great resources. Maybe with practice and use of the different sites, it will become easier and second nature.


Kim

Theresa,


I also had to work around the tool bar with the del.icio.us. It took me about 3 or 4 attempts before it appeared on my computer screen.


Kim

For those of you who had trouble with the toolbar buttons, are you all using Safari? I did some quick searching to see if there were a better way to add them, but didn't come up with anything.

However, I did find this del.icio.us Safari extension that looked interesting - <a href="http://delicioussafari.com/blog/">http://delicioussafari.com/blog/</a>. I don't have a Mac, so I couldn't try it out, but if anybody else wants to try it and report back, it would be much appreciated!

Using Flickr and adding a photo went very smoothly.

Using Technorati was more challenging. I claimed my blog and started searching but couldn't post because I kept getting the message that my claim was in progress.

Theresa,

I agree that the blog claiming procedure is confusing. It was mentioned in the original Learning 2.0 program, but I removed it because it really isn't necessary to use it to get your posts to appear. Claiming your blog allows the blog to be listed in the Technorati blog directory, but your blog doesn't need to be in the directory to have its content included on Technorati.

The important thing to do to make sure your posts appear on Technorati is to adjust the Privacy settings in your blog's options to "I would like my blog to appear in search engines like Google and Sphere, and in public listings around WordPress.com."

Another thing that is a little confusing is that your posts won't appear unless you say your want the results to include blogs with "any authority." The other settings will only show blogs that have some authority. Since ours are all new blogs, we have no authority. To increase our authority, you need to get other blogs to link to you. The more blogs that link to you, the greater authority you have.

When comparing the three sites - del.icio.us, Flickr, Technorati - it's hard for me to say (right now) which was the most useful because I found all three to be a good learning experience.

I can see lots of uses for Flickr in any library setting. I was impressed with how Thomas Ford Memorial Library used it, same for the Libraries & Librarians Group. I think using a blog in this way personalizes a library for its patrons.

After reading Tagging Meets Subject Headings, I can see how tagging can be more to the point, and useful, when describing a book because sometimes subject headings are so far out in left field. It was also fun to explore LibraryThing. I liked reading the book reviews.

Kim,

That's right, a lot of sites are blocked at schools. It's a challenge.

TC

I just spent quite a bit of time going through some of the sites and articles bookmarked on del.icio.us. Not only did I enjoy several of the readings, but I also discovered several blogs I will be adding to my Bloglines account. I especially liked the "Essence of Library 2.0" blog posting bookmarked by Theresa. While playing with these tools, it's easy to get caught up in the fun and excitement, but it is important to keep perspective on what is really going to be appreciated and used by your users.

Daisy, I've been slow to jump on the del.icio.us bandwagon as well. I've looked at it several times and often use it to post links for my classes, but I've never used it to the extent of some of my colleagues. I think this exercise helped me see a value that I hadn't really seen before. Instead of just having an instructor assign reading (which I did anyway), it was nice to have the entire group sharing some of the information they found or already had. And it was easy to get lost in some of the readings as I was following the "tag trail." I also noticed that the del.icio.us home page is a little more user friendly than it was in the past. If I remember correctly, they used to just have one big tag cloud on their home page.

The school issue is one I hear about in so many of my classes. In fact, I was really worried about getting any library teachers in this class because I new many of these sites would be blocked. What you might want to do as you approach administration is just start with one thing. After the class is over, you might want to review the tools and figure out which one would be the most useful for your students and flesh out how you would like to use it, investigate ways you can address potential problems (for example, implementing comment moderation.), and have examples on hand. As administration becomes more comfortable with whatever you choose, you can then slowly start introducing other things you may want to implement. It will be much easier to make the case for unblocking something like del.icio.us, which has a clear value, as opposed to something like Facebook, which would probably never fly.

Also, if your school district has its own Web server, it may be more agreeable to downloading and installing the WordPress software from wordpress.org on its own server than opening up access to wordpress.com. It's open-source software and free to download.

I don't know if I can be much help in terms of tracking which information was found in different places. Overall, I think tools like del.icio.us and newsreaders (next week) do help you manage information, but they can also contribute to information overload. Google Desktop is a great search tool that allows you to search, among other things, your Web history. However, I don't like to use it because it makes copies of the Web sites you visit and stores them on your local computer. I just don't like keeping all of that information on my hard drive.

Regarding the information overload syndrome it's something that catches up with me at times and I find myself becoming very frustrated. At times like those I have to take a step back and talk myself in off the ledge by thinking that as a librarian, after years of experience, I'm better equipped to deal with huge amounts of incoming information than most, and what I need to do is take myself in hand and become better acquainted and comfortable with the new tools needed to deal in the computer age.

Once I needed to learn to use the card catalogue and multiple reference sources now I need to learn to use tagging, blog and RSS feed tools; that is one of the reasons I wanted to take this class even though I had dabbled in many of the areas we are covering. As with del.icio.us, I haven't given some of them the proper attention needed to see how they can assist me. I’ll try anything once so what’s been happening is I’ve checked out something like del.icio.us, create an account, play around for a half hour or so, then tell myself I'll come back when I have more time and never do. The structure of assignments over a period of weeks is making me find the time for closer investigation and I can honestly say it's already starting to put some things in perspective. I’m seeing clearer how tagging, del.icio.us, flickr and blogs can work, jury is still out on Technorati however.

Daisy

I liked the "Online-Powered School Libraries" article that is bookmarked with the semls20 tag in del.icio.us

I think that it gets to the heart of what we'd like to do in school libraries.

TC

The site I enjoyed the most was Flickr. What a resource. The other sites were "noisy". I tried a search of landscaping to see if bloggers are sharing practical advice on gardening. Technorati is not the place for a library type search. I am really learning about another dimension of web life. This is fun.

Linda

It takes awhile to abandon the old principles of Web (1.0) to embrace these new technologies. It takes me forever to get all the steps down!
I need to get more of my photos out of my IPhoto stuff and into Flickr. Technorati is amazing.

I tried the Safari Delicious tool and didn't have much success, but I have an older version of Safari and tend to use Firefox as well. I still don't have the tag button anywhere on my toolbars.

I think Flickr and Delicious are both great tools for students doing assignments...a great interface between school and public library. Also for Teen programs and advisory boards.

Subject headings become folksonomies, but we still need the control in there...