Question about RSSing tags
Submitted by tamaracameron on Tue, 2007-02-27 19:07.
So...i have practiced embedding feeds of del.icio.us tags into webpages. My question, or rather my pondering on the topic, is that you still have a 'list'of bookmarks. am i right? i don't like lists of links. i don't find they're user-friendly--especially for teenagers. so now my thoughts are that this is a good tool for specific projects (i mean class research projects). but i'm back to thinking that searchable databases are better for overall collection of resources.
hierarchy is often the only means a student has of navigating through electronic systems.
any ideas?
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Well, one answer may be to
Well, one answer may be to show them the tag cloud... but I think link "bundling" may be your best bet -- small lists of tightly-focused links.
Then again, you may be surprised at their patience if you give them a list they can really get their teeth into. Sometimes they'll surprise you.
The benefit I see with
The benefit I see with delicious links is the focus and selection you can have with the resources students may use in a specific research project. I can see this in working with my middle school students. No, I don't think it takes the place of our subscription databases, but I don't see my students able to use those databases effectively yet. (working on that) A 'list' of delicious links is not so different than the list of returns after a google search, in terms of appearance; the valuable difference is in the quality and relevance of the links in that list. I haven't had a chance to try using a set of delicious links with students yet, though.
For a while now, i've been using http://www.ikeepbookmarks.com to store and organize links to websites for student research. I still think there's some use for it, as you can organize the links within folders and subfolders by subject area or topic, for example. Worth a look if you haven't seen it. portaportal.com is similar, but better looking.
An interesting alternative I found is the google co-op. Here's one I created for African-American History. With your google account, you can set up a custom search engine using websites you specify. So you could, for example, collect your sites using delicious and when you have what you need, use that delicious list in the google co-op search. I was just looking, and you can also upload an opml file for your list of sites, which maybe delicious can export?
Hey, thanks for those sites.
Hey, thanks for those sites. It helps to see examples. I see the benefit of scaffolding students' access to information sources, especially while they have 'the need to know'.
My hesitation is really that when you have individual pages (say pathfinders or lists of links for a project or even subject guides), you still run into the problem of managing networked content. A local centralized repository of librarian-indexed websites could be another point of access. I know I am playing devil's advocate a bit here. My thoughts right now are that students need to practice managing the classification system in databases. They default often to a full-text google-like search, which isn't always helpful in giving them a conceptual picture of their topic.
The benefit I see with del.icio.us is as a strategy to incorporate users' information culture into library services. I guess this is where wikis will come in!