#06: Delicious experience & lesson plan ideas

[Steve Gibbs]

Part #1: Describe your experience learning and using Delicious. How do you like it? Do you have suggestions to others? Do you have questions? Share your Delicious URL

Example Response: First time I used it, I dismissed it. It looked good, but I didn't have the time, desire, or interest to dig in. Later on, I had the urgent need to bookmark a few sites for ubiquitous access and returned to Delicious. It worked so well, I began using it more. Then I linked to other teachers with great sites listed and got more interested. Now I teach it to everyone and use it almost every day.

delicious.com/stevegibbs

Part #2: List two lesson plan ideas that could use Delicious in the classroom.

Example Lesson Plan: Start the year with Delicious for all students. Give them access to teacher Delicious site and use class-specific tags for sites necessary for those students

Example Lesson Plan: Require students to find 10 links on a unit topic. In language arts, I can require 10 links to each novel/play we read, and so on.

[lauren]

Part #1: I like the idea of having bookmarks on a site separate from my computer for universal access. I have yet to transfer bookmarks already stored in my main computers to the site. I also need to refine my storage techniques for easier retrieval by topic.

delicious.com/laurennourse

Part#2: Example Lesson Plan: Several times during the year we go into the computer lab and students work on an interactive web site for force and motion. Have students find at least 5 additional sites to support the topic - either interactive or enrichment.

During our element research students routinely forgot to get proper information from the web research. If they got into a habit of saving the site to delicious they could return to get proper citations when they were ready to do their final copy of their project.

[Jeff Jones]

[glow=red,2,300]My first thoughts on any online place that stores my info is I hate it . The idea of all of my info on anything floating around on the web still bothers me. That being said Delicious is nice in that you can use the categories to search and find sites that others find useful.

Delicious would be great in doing a history research project where each student is required to add sites to the class list whebn doing their research. Over a couple years there would be a huge list of student found sites to provide online learning oppurtunities.[/glow]

[Amy]

I feel very similar to Jeff in terms of having to post information about myself on the internet. I get so much spam that I don't want to add to it and I'm a bit paranoid about putting too much information on the web because of privacy issues.

However, I have found it useful for this class to have a list of my bookmarks that I can access while at school and away from my own computer. It's proven me wrong.

I also like Jeff's idea about creating a history class delicious bookmark. Currently I have my own website and links for various projects but the students are always finding new information and good websites. I think it would be good to have them be able to add their own link. I'd do it by project catagory for both my classes - Modern World and Civics. It would also be fun to have a "fun page" of sorts where students could share fun websites that they use that are not necessarily education based.

[brandys]

My first reaction from working with Delicious was that it could be really helpful if I could only remember all of the sites I wanted to add. I am now hooked on the site and have been suggesting family and friends use it too. We even started using it to share websites that helped us plan my son's first birthday party. No more finding a site on one computer, then not being able to find it on another. Great find! delicious.com/brandyshelton18

Lesson ideas for using Delicious:
1. At the beginning of the year ask students to send you links to sites that they use the most (as long as they're appropriate). This could give you a good idea what draws your students' interests and you might be able to use some of them in your lessons. Sometimes kids know really cool places that offer free games or programs.

2. Because I teach elementary I usually have a lot of questions come from parents rather than the kids. I think it would be great to use Delicious as a place to put resources for parents for everything from homework help to topic specific information. Parents could even suggest additions and would be able to access the sites from work, home, or even the library.

[erlyn]

I think I first heard of Delicious from a class you taught for one of our inservice days. At first, I didn't think much about it, let alone use it but I am finding that it's not that bad. It's nice to have a place to store and categorize my websites but it can be overwhelming.

www.delicious.com/lynfu

For my students, I would store websites to use for projects (I do an Author Study, where they must do a power point presentation on the information they find on a specific author whose books they enjoy), as well as some fun educational game sites. I can also store websites that correspond with anything I am currently teaching (Mythology, The bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc...) and pull them up to show my classes. I do like Steve's idea of having students find links that relate to the novel they are currently reading, and I like Brandy's idea of polling my students for their favorite sites to see what draws their attention - however, some of them may be blocked.

[tbonebusch]

I am using it so much, I need an organizer for all of the tags. I'm sure I'll get around to learning how to manage that. So, I am still in the "clunky" stage, when retriving specific sites that I have saved. But like other have said, having access from any location is a huge benefit. And yes, Martinez has dipped its toes into the 21st century. Teacher computers have much more access than before. Which means, I can get Delicious, pbworks and more at school now.

[LaurenNourse]

I hadn't thought about asking kids what their favorite sites were. Have often used their contributions when we are doing research but will try to give them more of a "say-so" and hopefully build up their enthusiasm for the project.

[Megan G]

I, too, am not 100% ok with my "stuff" being out in cyberspace, but I am just making sure that what I post is generic enough that it doesn't matter. I love the Delicious concept and have used it a lot in researching my thesis topic. It is easy to dump a link onto Delicious and come back to it when I am ready to read/tear apart an article.

As far as lessons... I would definitely use it as a place where my students could add sites for our state reports or other research. I can see it getting to be a bit overwhelming once I get a lot of different sites up. I am trying to be diligent about tagging with multiple tags, but it's hard to tag something when you aren't sure how you will look for it in the future.

[jhartman]

delicious.com/jeffersonhartman

Having my bookmarks online is a great idea. Now that I use several different computers to do work, I do have to worry about what bookmarks I have saved. Adding tags is also a good resource because I can utilized the energy others have expended in finding good sites. One thing I do not understand is that some of the emails I have sent to friends and family have included some of my bookmaks from delicious. How did that happen?

When ever my students complete an assignment that requires research they very often forget what resources they used by the time they get the the reference page. Have my students bookmark every page in which they used in research and tag in certain way so I can find some there sources.