De.li.cio.us

De.li.cio.us!

Reading the introductory explanation on bloggingenglish and some definitions from sources such as Wikipedia, I finally figured out what social bookmaking means. Near "bookmarking" now an adjective appears, that is, "social", a word which contains implicitly the idea of sharing and collaboration.
Since I always use the same computer, I bookmark links to my favourite websites in my web browser. But now I know there is an alternative way to that, by using a social bookmarking website, such as De.li.cio.us. In other words, this means that you can get to your "u.r.l. repository" anywhere you are, from any computer.
De.li.cio.us can be seen as a search engine where, unlike Google, websites are scanned by people and not by a pc. It gives you the possibility to save time and retrieve good links.
As bookmarks are public (but you can also decide not to share some or all of them with others), people create networks where websites are organised by tags.
Thanks to De.li.cio.us you can discover much more about your favourite subject-matters or to gain knowledge of many other things.

However, I think there are also a drawback, a limit in its use: you cannot know how people value what they have found, I mean, you cannot know according to which criteria a person judges a website as a good or bad one. So, if you must deal with an issue which is of particular interest to you, you should go to Google and filter the options retrieved by yourself and then save them in De.li.cio.us!

For this e-tivity our assignment was to look at our peers’ choices in order to better understand how De.li.cio.us works.

• Like me, Giovanna chose a website about slang. In Urban dictionary every headword is followed by its definition and some examples. I think it is important the fact that this site is often updated, showing, once again, how fast language changes in time. It has an inner search engine and a clickable alphabet to make easier your search.
  
• Alessia chose a website I always use, that is, WordReference. It offers the opportunity to translate a word into different languages, to find English definitions, to link to Merriam-Webster or to dictionary.com in order to compare word definitions. I think it is a fundamental tool for writing, understanding the different connotations of words and using them properly. It is also useful its Italian-English forum!
  
• I enjoyed Caterina’s website about how to write, think and learn more clearly by University of Georgia. Suggestions, disguised as slides, are concise and very clear. Some slides have a title followed by brief explanatory sentences, signalled by bullet points; some have impressive quotations. I think it’s nice and fast to read!
  
• One of Stefania’s website is about exercises. It is divided into five sections: grammar, vocabulary, verb, listening and reading. As she wrote, there are very many exercise and, what is more important, they are divided into levels, from the elementary to the advanced. You can also watch movies (drama and animation) with or without subtitles…Wonderful, isn’t it?!
• Marta chose a website where you can find tools to improve English as a second language. There are many sections: since I’m a student I went to the "Student" menu at the top of the page and I surfed for a little while. There are multiple-choice exercises (with final grading) whose degree of difficulty varies according to your English level, I mean, if you are a beginner or an intermediate. If you register, you can have free access to quizzes to test your knowledge.