Thing 6---I think.

Sorry my title is wrong, I finally caught on and MANY of my things are misnumbered, by week # rather than thing number. This is really Things 13 and 14. Other than the fact that I do not 'get' why this site and g.ho.st. and several others now that I stop and think about it, insist on separating their name with periods or dots as if their name was an abbreviation. Maybe it is supposed to be cute and instead of just using the G.H. and S. they have made a creative name, but I just find it annoying and impossible to remember how to properly site.
However, back to Delicious (we are going to forget the dots because they are annoying remember?) I think that it is one of the most useful new tools and everyone needs to get an account. When my last 3 computers crashed, each time I lost the precious bookmarks that I had in some accounts saved over a matter of years. Now I have no record of that great 4th grade teacher's state reference site because I only remember that it was "that great 4th grade teacher's site". However, with my new iMac I immediately downloaded Delicious and now every single bookmark is now backed up on the Delicious site and tagged and most of all just as easy to use as the ordinary bookmarks.
I have also looked at other Delicious applications, especially the sharing of links and I think that this has the possibility to be a wonderful tool but it is currently being misused. I was greatful earlier this year when a member of PSLA sent us her delicious site for links about legislative issues, and I will be linking to this from the PSLA Students wiki. She did it the right way, the list is not too long and each link is listed with tags AND a brief description. Most people will give you a list that is way too long, completely unorganized and that contain absolutely no description and only tags that refer to every possible word that applies to that site (not the two best words, but EVERY word they could think of!). This type of Delicious list is pointless and useless to all except the person who created it. I still believe that we are better served by creating links pages on websites if that is what we want because it forces the creator to put the time and effort deserved into each link. For this reason, unless they are done right, I see limited use for these in the K-8 setting.
On to Technorati. I get it and see how and why it works but I have to be honest and say I did not complete the discovery exercise because once again I ask you (the one person who reads my blog, because really who would want to read THIS blog!?) Don't you have something better to do? (No offense!) There is nothing remarkable about it and I really do not want the world knowing my thoughts and would not want to encourage people to read it! (see my first post for more thoughts on this subject). This also has more to do with what I do for a living too. Not only do I fear for my job in today's world where teachers are expected to be both saints and real people at the same time, but held to the standard of saints when pushed and for that reason anything I write in this blog could come back to bite me so I can't truely be honest or forethright. But also, there is little application for me to share a blog with my students or my community of teachers or parents. So I don't need to promote it through Technorati, but I am glad such a tool excists if I ever change my mind.