Social Bookmarking

After being introduced to del.icio.us this past week, I had to think about whether I liked it or not and would use it in the future for teaching. I think there are benefits to using a social bookmarking application. For one, you can access your bookmarks on any computer with internet access. Most people, including myself, only have bookmarks on their personal computer. Another advantage with social bookmarking is you can make a tag(s) for each website that you bookmark. This enables you to quickly find the website you are looking for by the given tag. If your bookmarks are public, then it enables others to find a website that you have marked based on your tag name. The down side of this is if I only tag a website about dogs as "dogs" then people who type in "dogbreeds" or "pugs" will not find this website because their search did not match my tag.
I can definitely see myself using del.icio.us for my personal use. I would use it primarily for my bookmarks and not the social aspect of networking with others.
As far as using it when I am teaching, I think I may use it to some degree. If would be convenient if I created a general account (kind of like our 416 resources!) for my students to use. I would put helpful websites there that my students can access and use. If I wanted, I could also have the option of allowing them to add to the list of websites if they found an appropriate one that they found useful. If this was public, then parents could also access it and use it when helping their students or when they want to know what we are using in the classroom as resources. I could post websites for parents such as helping your child read and write or a helpful disciplinary website. I think some parents would appreciate the extra resources.
One problem with using this application with students is that it assumes everyone has access to the internet. I cannot hold my students responsible for having a computer at home. I would have to count on having computers available in my classroom and/or school.
Overall, I like del.icio.us but I truly think I would use it primarily for personal use!