K12 Learning 2.0

Delicious has become one of my most favorite Web 2.0 tools, right up there with Creative Commons and Flickr.  As part of my job, I visit our different schools – sometimes I set up my laptop to work, other times I use a computer in the media center or clasroom.  It is so wonderful to have ALL my “web resources” available no matter where I am.  I support a variety of programs/topics and as I age, I no longer can “remember” as much as I need  on all these topics.  By bookmarking resources I need/use, Delicious helps me competently complete job assignments.

Again, with my media background, the idea of tagging (keywords in media terms) makes so much sense.  It’s how media specialists have provided resources for their patrons – by offering keywords to search for items.  Delicious does this plus allows you to add notes to the link – to offer more detail on why/how this resource can be used.

I haven’t imported my Favorites into Delicious yet – I know I want to do some clean up on them before importing.  This class has me doing some thinking about “tagging” and I’m rethinking how I might organize/tag my Favorites.  What I have used Delicious for is saving all the resources I use for the professional development classes I teach.  As so often happens to me, I’ll be working on one project/assignment and as I’m searching, I’ll discover a wonderful resource for another interest.  With Delicious, I can bookmark that resource, continue on with my job assignment and then revisit the new web resource as I’m working on that class.

I did introduce Delicious to a group of media specialists in North Georgia – and they have been utilizing it all year.  One of the ways a number of media specialists are using it is for their Information Pathfinders.  Media specialists provide a “path’ for students to begin researching a topic – we call them Information Pathfinders.  The media specialist (with the classroom teacher) pre-selects web resources as well as including databases and print resources the media center owns to begin the student on the right “path” of research.  I’m personally overwhelmed when I get 550,000 hits on a search term – I imagine students are too………we feel these pathfinders are an efficient, effective, timely way for students to focus on their topic of research/assignment.  The wonderful part about Delicious is that I can continue to add resources as I find them to a particular topic (e.g. American History) and the link I provide students stays the same – I don’t have to re-edit, add, delete………..
I also love that I can Search Everyone’s Bookmarks and see what resources others have found or recommend.  It saves a lot of time and confirms I’m heading down the right path on a specific topic……..

My Delicious links can be found at http://delicious.com/Esther5……