This is the fifth in a series of forum posts asking for feedback on the software and services around the different categories of Classroom 2.0 programs. This time it's social bookmarking. Del.icio.us, Diigo, Furl, Simpy, or some other?

Which are your favorites and why?
What features are important to you?
(If you're feeling verbose) What are the pros and cons of the programs you've tried?

Hopefully, these discussions will provide an unparalleled reference for new users making choices about what tools to use.

Tags: bookmarking, reviews

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I use Diigo as a tool for student research, note taking, and commenting. Diigo is like Delicious, however it gives you the ability to highlight passages in articles and take notes on the passage or post comments or questions. I have the student or students invite me into the group they create. When they read the online article, bookmark it, highlight a passage, and add a comment to it I see what they have done since I'm a member of the group. Diigo is a great tool to monitor research, ask questions, or evaluate comments of students. Diigo bookmarks and tags sync with Delicious also. The Diigo toolbar can be installed on Firefox and IE, but it can’t be installed on Safari. Here is a screencast I made on the use of Diigo as a classroom teacher.
I really like Dave's idea about his use of Diigo.

The fact you have to download Diigo is problematic, though, at least for our school computers. However, it got me thinking...

I've posted in my blog about how I have students use online tools called Fleck and Jump Knowledge (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2007/05/26/fleck-2/) to "annotate" their favorite links on my webpage.

There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't use the same tool on articles they find interesting.

It's an obviously better use of these tools than just focusing on my site. I'm going to give it a try.

Dave, thanks again for sharing....
Diigo has a great bookmarklet that does not need download. It allows you to highligh, sticky note, tag, just like the toolbar
I didn't know that Diigo bookmarks and tag syncs with del.icio.us

HOW does it do that?
Yep, on the Diigo bookmark pop-up there is a check box called "Add Elsewhere". You can send bookmarks to del.icio.us, Magnolia, Yahoo!Bookmarks (or whatever they call their service now). I've use that because I prefer Diigo, but some I communicate with use del.icio.us so I can send them to everyone.
see recent comparison about diigo vs delicious " 7 Reasons Diigo Tastes Better Than Delicious"

Diigo's groups are great way to share stuff. You can even vote up and down, making it like a mini-digg.

Classroom 2.0 group there has about 500 members! http://groups.diigo.com/groups/classroom20
When asked which social networking or Web 2.0 tool you could not give up - hands down it is delicious social bookmarking. http://del.icio.us

Features I appreciate and use often:
1. Personal network - I have added top leaders, thinkers, and developers in educational technology. By having a look at what they are posting, I become aware of quality sites and can view with interest where their current thinking is taking them.
2. Ability to send bookmarks to anyone in your network - just added their tag to the tag list.
3. Ability to view my bookmarks from any computer with an Internet connection.
4. Open to anyone who wants to view my bookmarks.
5. Ability to organize by tag designations.
6. High quality resources posted. The del.icio.us community are their own filter for content.

Second essential program is Skype for video conferencing and instant messaging/chat. I regularly collaborate with colleagues via Skype. Skype can also be used to bring content specialists into your classroom. Interview podcasts nearly always use Skype to record VOIP telephone calls for their interviews. Excellent and reliable application very easy to use.

Third: Bloglines newsfeed reader is easy to use and separates newsfeed content from other information silos I wade through on a daily basis. Other bloggers I follow have their content pushed to me and I read their content on my own time and place. Easy to subscribe to, free, and many blogs support a direct to Bloglines feed reader and to my account.
I use NetNewsWire and in the most recent version, there is a tool for bookmarking within this newsaggregator to del.icio.us. I also like following peoples' bookmark collections in NetNewswire, although I also use the networking feature in del.icio.us. In fact, I occasionally export my feeds as an .ompl file and import these feeds into Bloglines and Google Reader because those newsreaders have different functionality. For instance, I can tell in Bloglines how many people are subscribed to a feed, and Bloglines also has a social component as you can browse the collected feeds of others.

I use Furl off and on mostly because of its ability to archive web pages. You can also export links into proper bibliographic form, I think. To bookmark to del.icio.us AND furl, I use a bookmarklet tool called OnlyWire that lets me do this simultaenously.
I am a del.icio.us user and love it for all of the reasons that Lynne mentioned above. It is very easy to use, especially with quality tools like the Yahoo Firefox add-on. It also integrates into different applications well (Wordpress, widgets, curriculum maps, etc.) I created an account for the primary teachers in my district and they took to it well. Now we have a collection of web resources that grows because of our collaborative efforts.

My cons are more of a wish list, but here we go:

1. We are stretching the system because many people are using the same account. I wish there was an organization version of del.icio.us. Perhaps different users for the same account.
2. We have collected a lot of sites because we have so many users and it can be a little overwhelming. With savvy searching and tag management this is overcome, but I wish there was a dig-like feature that allowed teachers to rank sites they liked. Del.icio.us does this by showing you how many other del.icio.us users have tagged websites. Although this works in a general way, it does not help our teachers know which sites are good for OUR curriculum. If we had different users, perhaps we could have a ranking system that works within our organization.

If anyone knows a system that can do this, let me know! Oh, to dream...
Have you thought about just doing a network instead of putting it all in one account?
Hi Alice,

In retrospect, I think this would have been a better way to go. The original thought was to capitalize on our shared intelligence, but I'm afraid it's going to get unwieldy. I wanted teachers to be able to tag curriculum areas and provide real time sharing. I think personal accounts will be a part of this year's professional development.
If anyone knows a system that can do this, let me know! Oh, to dream...

I do this the good, old fashioned way. Sharing. Instead of everyone collecting. Everyone has a shared account. EXPERTS look at the sites submited and reject. I reject almost 35% and also have a 5star system that I give to it. This works and is the only way I know, people in the know, doing the leg work. Sometimes, sites like delicious are just waaaaaaay too much which equals in the end, too little. Sometimes, a gate keeper is needed.

DD

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