Social Bookmarking: Delicious

"Delicious is a Social Bookmarking service, which means you can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are bookmarking. It also means that we can show you the most popular bookmarks being saved right now across many areas of interest. In addition, our search and tagging tools help you keep track of your entire bookmark collection and find tasty new bookmarks from people like you."

What is Delicous? Delicious is a social bookmarking site that allows you to organize websites that are useful to you. Social bookmarking is the practice of saving bookmarks to a public website and tagging them using keywords. This new and upcoming web tool is useful to almost everyone who uses the internet. Social bookmarking opens the door to new ways of organization. Tagging these websites and using keywords to categorize has the potential to change how we store and find information. It will eventually lead to an easily accessible way of retrieving information by simply accessing one site which leads to the many that we have tagged. 
The website, Delicious, would be beneficial for almost all professions. You can direct a link to almost any website and create multiple tags for quick and efficient findings. It is considered one of the most common forms of social bookmarking. However, social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that reference them. Delicious enables the user to search and collect their favorite or most used websites in one place. It also makes searching for new websites easier based on what other people have already searched for. 










 One of the more widely used forms of social bookmarking would be Twitter. Twitter is  social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read other users' messages called tweets. People can indicate a tag by using the # sign. People are now using Twitter much like they use other social networking sites like Facebook. Keeping up with friends, family, and even celebrities. Twitter is also used for advertising for businesses. It is the easiest and most cost efficient way to advertise. It is entirely free and if you have enough followers it is a great way to advertise for your business.  For example where I am currently working we use a twitter account to publicly announce our specials. This is a prime example of how free advertising through twitter can benefit a business. 







Below is a link to Twitter. Signing up is quick, easy, and free. You could be reconnected with long lost friends in a matter of moments. 



  Sign up for Twitter here!

Educational Technology

We were taught in class the importance of educational technology. There are various methods to use technology for classroom management, administration, and teaching. Whether its a new and inventive way to offer spelling words to a fifth grade class or a site such as Sakaii that allows college students to have direct access to learning resources the teacher provides. Technology is rapidly enhancing the manner in which students learn and teachers teach. Below are some examples of teaching tools that can be found online and for free.

WORDLE

"Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. Live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you."

Wordle is a free tool found on the internet. You provide specific texts and it complies them into an picture with "clouds." The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. The program allows you to select fonts, colors, and schemes to appeal to the viewer in a specific manner. Wordle is a really fun tool that could be used as a marketing and advertising for various occasions. I could see myself using this tool to promote specific community service events that I have been involved in with the football team.

 This tool may not be as applicable for my future profession, in the sports industry. It would be nice to use for someone in the education field, however. For instance, you could use it for spelling words. Lets say you were teaching 2nd grade and you had 10 spelling words, you could put them into wordle and have the kids take turns identifying the word and spelling it on the chalkboard. I think that with all the technology we have nowadays, the more you trying to create fun learning environments for kids the more likely they are to want to learn. So as opposed to just handing them a list of their spelling words, handing them a wordle might just make that much of a difference. 

Web Technology

Did You Know?

        Personally, this video made me feel very uneasy. Our society is so dependent on technology, that if there were to be some sort of epic technological crash (if you will) our society would basically cease to exist. I felt the video was very informative and somewhat blew my mind when it put things into perspective. For example, according to the video: 25% of India's population with the highest IQ's is greater than the total population of the United States. India also has more honors kids than America has kids. It also says that 1 out of 8 couples married in the US last year met online, what does that say about our society? Our social skills? Our technology is growing at such a rapid rate that for student starting a 4 year degree, half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. In all honesty these statistics are a little frightening to me, call me a coward but how can you not be scared when the world as you know it is constantly changing. I believe the quote "the only consistent thing in this world is that everything is always changing" strongly applies to technology. Students are being prepared for jobs that do not even exist at the moment. How can you stand on your own two feet when the world is constantly shifting?

        

        From an athletic stand point, in the world of sports management, transformation is inevitable.  We have athletes tweeting during games, blogs about every subject you can imagine, magazines coming out with their own online versions, websites devoted to high school recruiting. All of it is available to you via computer, cell phone, ipad, etc. All at the click of a button, all at the touch of a mouse. Recently, Chad Ochocinco was fine a total of 25K for "in game tweeting." This fine led to numerous blogs/articles about where the NFL will draw the line. Was it alright for the NFL to step in? Is it their place? Should it be up to the team? All very valid questions, but yet no real answer can be concluded. Nowadays, cell phone service providers offer you the ability to access NFL, NBA, and MLB updates via text message or internet browser. I will admit I am guilty of checking the updates of my beloved Colts, while sitting in Raymond James Stadium watching the Bucs play the Falcons or checking play off scores while at a family dinner. Call it extreme, but it is definitely convenient. The examples are endless. You can site online recruiting websites, those things can legitamately make or break a high school player. Same goes for online draft reports, one bad physical or a strongly worded opinion from a scouting coach and you will forever be proving yourself in the eyes of the public. Is it good for the sports industry? Arguably, yes? It makes having a love for the game much easier, it can take someone who knows very little about sports into a worldly spectator. Some may argue otherwise. 

        http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage/football

         Take Fantasy Football for example. Most avid football fans would love nothing more than to be in control of their favorite football team. Be an advisor on draft day, make cuts, hires coaches, the whole nine-yards. Fantasy football gives these fans that opportunity. You can put together a team of athletes to compete against friends and other people in the "league." They claim in order to be successful in fantasy football "you need the business savvy of a general manager, the knowledge of a pro scout, and the strategy of a head coach." People take football to a whole new level in fantasy football. 

         DID YOU KNOW? 2.0