Google bookmarks

I've only played with google bookmarks for a few minutes, but I very much miss the social element that is the essence of Delicious. We had some extra time in class today so I showed the students the Common Craft video about Delicious and then showed them my Delicious account. They seemed intrigued by the ability to search others' bookmarks (especially since some foolish users make their searches of porn and other such matters a part of their public bookmarks). Is all of this overwhelming? Sure. But some kids will get it and bring others along over the course of the year, I think.

I want to keep pushing my pioneer model: we need to point out the frontier so that the pioneers can head out, set up settlements, and then help the others come along. If some kids end up only using google bookmarks, that's fine. All in all, I'm not totally convinced that the social bookmarking stuff doesn't yield far more junk than it does useful leads, especially if you don't devote a lot of time to it. But I think it has potential, and I'd like to let some of the kids play with it so that I can know how useful it might be. There are ways to set up a Delicious tag feed so that when someone you're following tags something new you can be alerted to it. This would be great if you identify a good tagger. Again, potential for lots and lots of junk, but also potential for hitting gold.

I hear what you're saying about giving the kids another on-line data base, but it seems to me that right now, the they need to start reading fun stuff about their topic. They need to see if they can get excited about what they've chosen to study before they start doing the hard work of research. I'm not sure that the data base will have enough fun stuff. Personally, while I find data bases great for finding things that I'm looking for, I find them less useful for browsing.

For browsing, I find that the web is much better. I feel as if they first need some time simply to read around and find out about their subjects (which are still huge, vague, and uncertain) before they start researching in any systematic way.

Actually, it seems to me that the next step (after the proposal) is to have a discussion that will lead to the development of a research strategy (to use the terms that Bridget used on her site--and how come SHE'S not blogging here????). Right now, there's definitely some initial interest in the topics and I'd like to feed this fire (camp fire?). I'm just not sure that the data bases--as useful as they are--are sexy enough.

[Actually, in some ways, finding a recent book about their general topic might be exciting, too. They would discover that the world (beyond the web) is interested in the same things they are.]

[Too many ideas right now. Also, not enough sleep. I'm glad you're enjoying your new computer. What did you get?]