Lesson 8

Delicious.com

I have heard of this site from another teacher that really enjoys it, but this was my first time viewing this webpage. When looking at delicious.com I found a number interesting findings when I was playing with the searches.

I started by searching:

1) "printables" - often this is a good way to see what can help me to help teachers by giving them something that is quick and easy to use. This took me in a direction of flash cards, printable games, links to "Enchanted Learning" (which we belong to and use). I found this to be useful and something I can suggest to my teachers. This was a quick and easy hit that worked very well and I was impressed.

2) "sharks" - I randomly picked an animal and I found this process to be frustrating at the start. I decided to pick something that kids would just type into the search engine and hope for answers. The results were all over the place. I then added the tag "information" to it and this did not help the process. So I deleted "information" and typed in "resources" to go with the "sharks" tag. This resulted in many more hits that would be useful. It took me to a link "Fiona's Shark Links" and there was lots of information here. I also used one of their suggested tags "science" and this resulted in a number of hits that could be useful, after that tag I used their suggested tag of "reference" and this narrowed the search to some sights that would actually be useful by some elementary students.

My reaction to this process was mixed. As an educator with a degree, knowledge in searching, patience in finding information I can see how this site would be useful and how the 'tags' button can change/help you in searching for information. I would be ok with spending time trying to find something that would enhance my lessons. However, there is no way I would expect an elementary student to have the skills to sift through all this information. This would be too much for them to take in and they would get frustrated as they want that information instantly. I'm not sure if a high school student would be able to do it.

Adding the tags is a nice awareness tip for me. This is helpful in working towards assignment #2 when I start adding tags to my MARC. The sharks tag was a little annoying trying to find something that would be readable for an elementary age student, it wasn't until I had these tags "shark, sharks, science, reference" was I able to get a quick hit that would work for elementary students. This makes me more aware of the word choices used in the MARC for the library catalogue when the students are trying to find the information books they need. However, this process was ok in finding information that a teacher could use in to help their lessons if they had too, they would just need to be aware that a little time would need to be spent in finding something they want.