Social bookmarking is a way to manage...

            Social bookmarking is a way to manage, store, and organize internet sites that you find interesting or helpful.  I recently did research on two social bookmarking sites, Diigo and del.icio.us, and there were some similarities and differences.  For instance, both sites let you publicly share your bookmarks, tag sites, and bundle your tags.  Tags are a way to give a one or two word description of a bookmarked web site; tags can then be bundled into one major category.  For example you are doing research on stress, as your topic, and you tag several web sites blood pressure, health, sleep disorders, and exercise then you bundle all of those tags under the heading “stress.”  Then when you go back to write your paper on stress you have all of the sub-categories, or tags, to pick from.  Both sites also let you see who else has bookmarked similar topics, so you can shorten your search by looking though their bookmarks.  Both sites also allow you to share web sites easily with your friends.  Since you access both, Diigo and del.icio.us from the web, you can get to your bookmarks from any computer that has a web browser.

            The item I like most about Diigo is that it highlights parts of web sites that others have made comments about and you can also see conversations people are having about that web site or topic.  Diigo also lets you know when people are online and will let you chat with them, whereas del.icio.us does not.  Diigo will let you create groups of people, and from an educators aspect this would be good for small groups who are doing a research paper together since it allows you to see recently added pages by your friends or other group members. 

            With del.icio.us you can have one page that has all the sites for a topic, so if you would like to give your students a list of resources that would be helpful to them, this would be a great way to do that.  I also like del.icio.us because you can save sites privately, so only you can view those web sites.  You can also subscribe to tags that interest you, so if you are a science teacher, then you can subscribe to weather, mammals, or habitats and del.icio.us will let you know when others have tagged those sites.

            I like the idea of social bookmarking, because it can make doing searches a lot faster and easier.  Also since your favorites are saved on the web and something happens to your home computer, you can at least easily get your bookmarks back.  With Diigo I can also see what others have thought about a site by reading the comments that were put on a page, by just placing my mouse over the highlighted area, and in some cases get more information on the same topic.  Personally, I will have to start using Diigo on a more regular bases, since of the two social bookmarking sites I researched, it is the one I liked the most.  These YouTube videos, on Diigo and del.icio.us, which will show you more about how to use Diigo effectively