Thing 12 - Social Bookmarking II

I just moved this post up to keep things in order, so if you've been here in the last few days, you've already seen this one. I have an account on Digg, but I just reconfigged it to throw Digg blog entries to this 23 Things blog, rather than to my personal one. I love Digg - although I haven't tried any of the others mentioned in the Thing 12 overview.

The Newsvine site intrigues me and I added it to my Google Reader. I read RealClearPolitics every day (obsessively) and Newsvine reminds me of RCP in that it lists articles from a number of sources. Newsvine has a wider variety of topics than RCP, which is dedicated exclusively to political news. Newsvine seems kind of like the people's Huffington Post.

Digg cracks me up because they are just a tad sarcastic when you move around your settings pages. I appreciate a good snark. This is the Digg blog entry I posted today. I was the first one to add this to Digg.

Dan Brown: School-Level Cuts Hit New York City

I added this story to Digg today. Our district had drastic cuts due to a failed levy, and these stories catch me all the time. It's bad all over. I was most struck by this quote: "...they absolutely need a reduction of the standardized testing mania that has gripped city schools. No child's education will be hindered if he takes fewer high-stakes tests. Regrettably, Bloomberg's ill-considered budget cuts keep in place a draconian testing regime while ripping out many of the support struts that enable students to achieve on those tests--and in life.Someday, we will regret leaving millions of kids behind.

read more | digg story

Blog prompts:

• How do you think you can use these tools in your library or at home?

I use Digg to catch what folks are reading the most. It's easy to categorize information and search by dates. I often star stories on Google Reader, but it's hard to categorize them (update: until I noticed you can tag stories!). I think this would be great for social studies teachers - especially those who pay attention to current events. Current events come right to you, and you can blog about what you read. I could see a class of kids, blogging on current events and reading each other's work.

• Do these tools seem to be a productivity enhancer or a productivity detractor?

I like the fact that I can quickly get at the information that I like to focus on using these sites. It is driven by web-savvy folks, so it has a bent toward the young and politically motivated, but I don't mind that. I think it could detract if you start just "grazing", which is easy to do. If you are directed to look for specific topics, these are great tools.

• Have you ever read a story/item as a result of seeing it on one of these sites?

I posted one Digg item I read at the top of this post. I don't use Digg as often as Google Reader, but when I do use it, I generally use it to post thoughts to my personal blog. Newsvine is now in my aggregator, so it'll be added to my daily news dump.