Thing Thirteen: Is it really delicious?

Hello readers! Well, I have finally investigated Delicious. It took me a while to warm up to the site; i feel that it is the same as searching on lycos, bing, or google. The only difference is you have to save and name everything instead of just adding it to your bookmarks for further use. So, once again I get to log into yet another website to access information. I think that is the one thing I am finding daunting about this process, the amount of user names and passwords I have accrued. I'm sure that some of these sights will never be visited again by me, while others will be frequently used, I'm not sure which category Delicious falls into. Okay, stepping off my soapbox...looking at this as a potential research assistant I can see that it might be useful if you are simply working from the internet, but does it work if I am working within a database? As a graduate student that is primarily where I am going to find my research, in databases of professional journals, etc. I can see that it would be available to you anywhere for use and tagging as long as you had an internet connection, but I do have to wonder what happens if all your research is there and your internet goes down; you need to definitely back that information up somewhere else as well, I would think. As a librarian I could see me using this application as a way to accumulate information for the different core areas and to tag them accordingly. I looked for ya fiction tags and found some good sites on reading advisory. I will continue to play with it and see where I ultimately land. For now I will be Switzerland...neutral. I looked at Digg as well, and that site really seemed like a cross between an RRS feed and facebook, you know, the Live News Feed part of facebook. I don't think I will be revisiting that site, but I can see how it would be appealing to those who like to keep up with news, etc.. online. Thanks for reading, I would love to hear your comments regarding these two sites. Heading out for another adventure...signing off.

Thing Twelve: To Comment or Not to Comment...that is the question!

Hello fellow LIbrary2Play-ers, and others who might be reading this blog. Today we are inspecting the ideas of commenting on other's blogs, and what to do with your comments section. After reading the many articles on correct blog commenting techniques, two drew my attention specifically. The first, how hard is it to leave a comment? I would agree with Darren Rowse on his tenth tip, Make is Easy to Comment. I know that I often don't leave a comment if it is too difficult to get that comment up on the blog. I prefer the ones that use other sites log in information, or OpenID, over having to create a profile in order to comment. I use a blog through SBISD that allows anyone to comment by typing in the name they want to appear as and their email address. I specifically chose to go with the one through the school district because it was so easy for all of my students to comment. The second thing I found important was the discussion of keeping up with your comments section. I agree with this; do I think it is feasible to comment back to every single person, no, not always, but I do think you should pick and choose good comments and return a comment to keep the discussion going. If readers feel that you never look at their comments, then why would they continue commenting, they might even stop reading your blog all-together. Okay, I'm off to find something meaningful to say to five other Library2Play bloggers and two others that I find out on the world wide web. I'll be back to let you know what I find. Signing off....

Thing Eleven: Shelfari vs. LibraryThing...the showdown

It is funny that this "thing" happened to fall at this time because I just recently had a conversation with another teacher who uses Shelfari with her students. I have recently opened up a blog discussion with my students regarding their thoughts on taking our current reading log and moving it online. My thought is that it would create more discussion amongst all of my classes, and allow for a more authentic audience. Currently I am the only person, besides the student, that reads their reading responses. With this new format it would allow for everyone to read their writing as well as comment to each other. My students seem really excited about the idea, as am I! So, it couldn't have come at a better time that I was introduced to LibraryThing as one of my 23 things. After perusing the site, checking out all of the resources, and setting up an account, I must say that I, unfortunately, find Shelfari to be more user friendly, and visually appealing. I think it is easier to search Shelfari vs. LibraryThing. In LIbraryThing once I added a book I had to search again to get the next book in the series. That became frustrating. Overall either of these two sites would work for creating an authentic, online community where your students could discuss books together. Let me know your thoughts on the matter, do you use Shelfari, if yes, how do these two sites compare to you?