Bookmarking is Del.icio.us

Have you ever started to work at home and needed to get to that website you always use at work... but you can't remember the URL because you always get to it from your 'Favorites' list on your computer at work??? Del.icio.us serves two purposes. The simple one is that it gives you a way to put your 'Favorites' list out on the web, which gives you access to it from anywhere. So you always have that list of your 'Favorite' websites availabale to you. The second purpose of using Del.icio.us is to share your 'Favorites' list with other people and to be able to share their 'Favorite' websites.

It's time to Generate Something

Once again I find myself amazed at all the things you can do by using these sites. However, you need to have two things to make the most of what they offer. You need to have the time to play with them and you need to have the creativity to know what you want to generate. I seem to be lacking both these days.

Finally A Tool That Can Help!

Many of you are struggling to see how this new learning will be of any benefit to you in your work. I've heard several people question the usefulness of setting up a Blog (now I have one...what do I do with it?). Over the next several months I hope we will get a chance to have some discussions about how these new Web 2.0 tools can be used to make us more efficient. In the meantime, let's think about RSS, because it is the one tool that can make something we all struggle with a little more manageable. The hardest part of my job is trying to keep current technology related topics. This is probably true for everyone in their own field of expertise. I absolutely do not have time to search through all the different technology relates websites for information that I can read to keep me informed. Here is what RSS can do for me... Once I decide which sources I am interested in using (Technology & Learning.com, CoSn, ISTE, etc) to get current information, I can link their RSS feed to my site (Bloglines). Now instead of me going out and looking for information... it comes to me in one location. That has got to save time! And to make it even better, once you get the hang of setting up the RSS feed, you can filter it so you only get articles from those sites on certain topics. So if I am interested in learning about 1-1 computing, I would only get the latest articles and information about 1-1 computing! You have to see the beauty of that...

Technology is My Life

I have finally completed the 'Things' for week 3. Flickr is an amazing collection of sites and tools to work with, view and find photos related to just about anything you can think of. As I explored the mashups and found tools do to crazy and interesting things to my pictures, I keep wondering when these people find time to do all of this. I could spend hours playing with these tools. I also thought about my coworkers who are spending their free time exploring these tools and I envy them because playing with this stuff is a break from there normal routine. Technology is already my life and this is more like work to me. It is not a break from what I do everyday.