Thomas Vander Wal tells me Delicious is a folksonomy - where users free tag information/objects in order to retrieve them easily later. Obvious benefit = language is applied BY users FOR users - no conventions needed and it is a "free" state of language - morphing with users' cultures and vocabularies as time passes. Outdated terms are no longer used, while new terms are instantly applied.
My initial ideas about Delicious included wanting to find a way to categorise links - file them into folders as I normally do on my laptop. I am now realising that by adding (well thought out) tags I am actually doing so, in a different way. I no longer "drill down" to the file/info I need, but search for its related tags to find it quickly and easily. That's neat - and a new concept to me.
Good points - adding the
bookmarklet will mean quick and easy link additions. I can make some links private for those that are for my own personal use. I can search my own links and also those of others - fabulous! I'm looking forward to searching for useful sites using the tags method. I have connected Delicious to my Twitter account - sites
mentioned there will automatically be transferred to Delicious. Will monitor this.
Difficulties - I have not found the search function to be very user friendly at all. I'm confused about how to search for particular people - the search options seem to disappear as soon as I start typing keywords. The help menu was not easily found and was not "searchable". Would like to set up networks here, but am really confused as to how.
Educational Use - would be great to share useful websites with colleagues if only I could figure out this networking thing!! Could use it with students to recommend/promote new books - lead them to reviews etc. Students could also collaboratively contribute resources to a common area. Staff could use to share educational resources.
I will use this site, but believe it could be more user-friendly in assisting people to connect with others in a similar field. Will certainly require a lot more familiarisation time before I feel completely convinced it is wonderful.
References:
Vander Wal, T. 2006. Understanding folksonomy: Tagging that works. dConstruct archive. Retrieved 3/12/13 from http://archive.dconstruct.org/2006/understandingfolksonomy.
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