Can you find it again?

I'll send you that link!

Have you ever been talking to someone who promised to send you a great link but now they can't find it? My guess is they didn't know how to use bookmarks effectively and probably did not know where to look for their web history.

Bookmarks and Favourites

These terms are interchangeable when used in reference to a web browser. 

Below are a series of screenshots showing you how to add to, edit and use your bookmarks in Internet Explorer, Chrome for desktop and tablets and Safari for iDevices.

If you prefer to use an online bookmarking service I recommend Diigo, but do investigate Delicious and Google bookmarks. Online services like these allow you to add tags, so that the search function finds and groups by the tags you have used. Their biggest advantage is that they can be viewed on any platform and are independent of learning the quirks of a particular browser's peculiarities. When one upgrades to a new computer or mobile device those bookmarks are all still there, not lost in the collapse of old hardware.

I have used Diigo for long term storage and tagging of bookmarks for several years and Chrome provides quick access to the sites I need daily.

Digital Litter

Where have you been and have you cleared away your rubbish?


As the end of the school year fast approaches for those of us looking forward to summer holidays, a certain amount of frenzy is generated as many endeavour to "clean out" what is no longer useful.


In libraries this may involve, weeding and stocktaking, in offices all over a certain amount of paperwork is re-evaluated and discarded as unnecessary. But what about those digital mountains you have created along the way? Do you have a personal archive policy, do you truly evaluate what is worth keeping for posterity as opposed to what is simply inhabiting server space all over the world? Our digital carbon footprint grows each year as the cost of storage for the personal user disappears, but do we need to retain all these files?

Whilst we focus on teaching students digital literacy and the value of a positive digital  footprint, do we often neglect our own trails of detritus? Do I need bookmarks in 3 online spaces, what about all those cute curation tools I've used to accumulate content over the years? Yes, some of them used to create hotlists for lessons, compile and gather useful URLs, have faded into obscurity. But what about those I dallied with for a year or two but now I rarely revisit?

Weird stuff by phernologist
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phrenologist/3026661706/

Time to take responsibility and clear out the litter. How many blog spaces have you played in and how many new tools did you sign up for, visit once or twice then decide it was not suited for your needs? Where is that early video you made that is no longer relevant? As I advise students to clean out their files on the school network, so too am I taking stock of my digital spaces. I'll be deactivating some of those accounts and hopefully clearing out some space both digitally and in my mind.

5 simple steps to a Scoop.it widget on your webpage or blog

Scoop.it widgets 
Many people are curating the best resources they can find using Scoop.it. You can use their expertise to display this dynamic content visually via a widget on your website or blog as shown with these 2 examples.

      


Scoop.it provides 2 alternatives for delivering content, an RSS feed and a widget. Once you are logged in choose Manage/ Export to find these options.
For the widget:
1. Choose shape - square or rectangular
2. The number of posts - default is 3 but I suggest 5
3. Select time to display, the widget above is set on 5 secs, the one on the right on 10
4. Use the slider to determine the width of the gadget.
5. Preview, adjust as desired then grab the code ready to paste to your website or blog.

How to grab other folk’s scoops using the widget 

Simply copy and edit the code below:
1. Replace the URL http://www.scoop.it/t/ebooksk12 with the address showing in the URL of the Scoop you want
2. Replace the title ebooks with the title you want displayed at the top of the widget

I have removed the first < from the code before the word iframe,  Insert it and remember to close the iframe at the end with < and /  to get your widget to work.

Code
iframe> align="left" frameborder="0" height="250" scrolling="no" src="http://www.scoop.it/t/ebooksk12/js?format=square&numberOfPosts=5&title=ebooks&speed=5&mode=normal&width=250" width="250"  iframe>

Notice that you can also adjust the size of the widget here too by altering the height and width numbers that currently are set at 250.

I've used Scoop.it widgets  here on our ipad page to display the wonderful resources that others are finding.

Have fun!