teaching tool del.icio.us
- Posted on March 10, 2008
- in PR, social media, teaching
- by kaye
At the Edelman Digital Bootcamp, I presented a number of social media assignments and teaching tools that I have worked into my traditional PR classes. This teaching tool is one.
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Social bookmark sites, like del.icio.us, allow users to post their Web site “bookmarks” online (so you can access from any computer, anywhere) and with others. When you bookmark a site that others have bookmarked, it will show you not only how many others but who. Why is this so interesting? Well, if you bookmark something that I bookmark then chances are we are interested in the same things … so you may find some really interesting Web sites over on my del.icio.us page and vice versa.
Social bookmarking can be used in the industry as a way to distribute daily clips to management. Additionally, you can check social bookmark sites to see how many people might have bookmarked a recent news article, press release or white paper.
In the classroom, social bookmarking can become a repository of extra online resources for your students. For examples, see my pages for my Public Relations Research Method (ADPR3510) course: http://del.icio.us/kaye.sweetser/adpr3510
Tips
- For each bookmark you add, you will want to create a “tag” for it. Think of these tags like keywords; they are just general organizational items. Each bookmark can get several tags. I often use content labels (like SPSS or IRB for my research class) as well as the class name (ADPR3510) when I bookmark something for a class.
- Post the del.icio.us URL for your class on the syllabus
- Tell the class to subscribe to your class del.icio.us RSS
- When you see that others have bookmarked the same thing you have, click on that link then start exploring their del.icio.us links to see you have other interests in common (this is how I found a lot of really great online tutorials for my classes)
- To create a “class del.icio.us page,” simply give all items you want your class to see a common tag (e.g., ADPR3510) then type in the URL to see just that tag on your del.icio.us account (http://del.icio.us/username/classtag can become http://del.icio.us/kaye.sweetser/adpr3510)
- Subscribe to others’ del.icio.us RSS feeds as a way to keep up with your own interests, in PR practice and education I suggest:
Thanks for mentioning my del.icio.us page. I also find it helpful for students to add my page to their network. I require them to add at least 10 links with at least three different tags to get them started with del.icio.us accounts. I also like showing students Common Craft’s video, which can be found on my student’s blog: http://catchingupwith3point0.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/mmmm-delicious/
Hi,
It looks like you would be interested in seeing this:
http://blog.simpy.com/blojsom/blog/2008/01/18/10-Reasons-for-Simpy-vs-del-icio-us.html
Pay special attention to the part about Groups, as they work really well for classrooms (del.icio.us doesn’t have equivalent functionality). Here is an example of a Group used by a university class:
http://www.simpy.com/group/3284
With a class Group like this, all students+teacher have a single place to get their shared bookmarks and don’t have to look for that special tag across all del.icio.us users or multiple people who are in the class.
I hope this helps.
Kaye,
I am glad that I found you (on Twitter). I am working on a project here in Athens and leveraging social media will hopefully add value. I can’t wait to go through your archives to see what I can learn.
Ron
Great list, Kaye. I subscribed to all six feeds. Thanks!
I will be teaching a different class than I normally teach and was glad to learn about tagging by class name. I just tagged my first item by class name and content. Thanks, Kaye!