Thing 10. Online Bookmarks

The bookmarking feature of browsers is great--if you only use one computer. And if you can find the bookmarks in long lists or in the folders you created. But what if you aren't at that computer or you can't remember which folder you put the bookmark in? How can you find your bookmarks? Online sites like Delicious solve this problem by keeping your bookmarks online and accessible from any computer.

This video explains Delicious:



Activities

1. Sign up, give it a try. Think of a good user name that you won't forget and remember your password, too!
   
2. If you have a computer at home or a laptop, install the Delicious buttons on your browser so you can easily bookmark or share sites with your fellow delicious users.The tool bar buttons really make it easy to use Delicious.
   
3. Go out and find some sites, then "tag" those sites as you post them to Delicious using your handy browser button. How do you tag sites? Simply put in a series of keywords that you feel best describes the site. For instance, some good tags that would describe this site would be: learning minnehaha_academy Web2.0
   

   Delicious may suggest keywords, but you may be the first to tag a site or you don't like those keywords. Use keywords that make sense to you.
   

4. To find your bookmarks go to "http://delicious/username", and replace "username" with the name you've chosen.

In addition, you can use Delicious when you take notes for research. Here's how Delicious can help you keep track of Web sites for a research project.

• When you find a site, tag it with a keyword related to that project. Use that same keyword every time you find an appropriate site. You can add other tags, too, but connect the site to your project.
• In the notes box, write a description or reason you are bookmarking this site. It can be short (lots of volcano pictures), but this is useful for you and for others using delicious.

As the video noted, many users find that the real power of Delicious is its social networking features. This is useful if you like to share links with others or if you are working on a group research project and want to share links.

In addition, you can see how other users have tagged similar links. Following their links lets you discover other Web sites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another users’ file folders, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's folders helps to build an expansive knowledge network.