Del.icio.us- Not convinced.

I am not convinced. Once again I learned a few things while surfing and playing around with Del.icio.us, but I am not sure it is as indispensable as others think it is. As far as a keeper of bookmarks, Igoogle will keep track of bookmarks. I do think the value of Del.icio.us is the shared reading lists and tagging. If I used it more often or was part of a large group project, for instance a NYLA panel, I can see where posting a large list of reading materials or websites to visit on Del.icio.us. would be extremely helpful. While surfing and checking the tag cloud for QL.Learing 2.0, I found there was really too much information to absorb. To be fair I did just glance over it and skim the list. At home I did download the del.icio.us button and played around. It was easy to Tag bookmarks and to add websites. Again I think I would find it more useful if I had a "real world" application I was working on. Like many of the "things" I am glad to know about them and will certainly go back to them to see if I can make better use of the resources available. I also saved the link from one of the readings on Del.icio.us tools to wade thru them to see if I can find something that I can use.

One last note, I did take another look at Technorati and the discussion of the "magic middle" and "authority" when it come to blogs. I agree that with all the millions of blogs out there the most useful tool is a website that provides some way to evaluate or place some authority on what is being written. I also read the article "Information Access in a Networked World" and I very much agree that parents and teachers need to accept that youth get information in all forms from the Internet. Instead of demeaning it, damning it and rejecting it, we need to integrate the Internet (esp Social Networking) into the classroom and teach students how to evaluate and question what they read and view.