Monday, July 28, 2008

Thing 11 Tagging and Del.icio.us


Tagging is great for organizing what you save.

It's the process of tagging what you post that is fascinating. It means you think you have something to share that others want to know. The web collaboration relies on the belief that we have information, insights, knowledge and perspectives that someone outside of our inner circle might want to know. Little children assume others want to know what they know. They yell "Watch me!" "Do you know what?" "I have a ... and it ...." They endlessly share their amazement with the world. Some adults continue to have that childlike quality. Actors, artists, musicians and writers share as a way of life. Specialists tag because they are experts and we want to know what they have to offer. The web offers the opportunity for everyone to share and the tags in a way say "Hey look over here. Look at me and what I have to say."

Prior to reading Thing 11 I'd added one tag. So I went back and added a few more but right now I would have to say that my 23 Things blog is so much about my own journey in learning that it doesn't offer a lot to others and that tags aren't warranted. Part of my travels in Web 2.0 will be to decide how the work I do could be tied to the collective web experience; right now none of the blogs I am in are open to the public.

Last year I wrote my DMTS class
I set up both a FURL and Del.cio.us account.
This is a great tool but I am struggling with it, which is why it has taken me so long to finish this assignment. Reading others comments in our forum helped. I am determined to get all my home links and work links combined, as it will be fantastic to have just one place to put them as I have hundreds organized in files in both locations. I REALLY LOVE just clicking on the toolbar and voila I have a window to save and organize in.

I located favorite sites and put them in del.cio.us in my personal file. I found it confusing as I use Firefox and OmniWeb as search engines at home and Explorer at work. I haven’t figured it all out but am determinedly trying to do so. The home applications have been easier to determine than the professional ones; there have been more tags in personal interest categories. I think as I learn to be more expansive in tagging I’ll find more professional connections.

Searching items of interest of others within FURL and delicious was interesting. Only 13 links to literacy coaches were created which tells me what I already suspected from searching for blogs and RSS feeds that we ‘book types’ need to get more into digital media. The interesting resources I found that I can relate to literacy and language arts are other professionals that had tagged reading, literacy, professional organizations, coaching, writing etc.

Thing 11 has helped me to decide to use Del.icio.us instead of Furl since going through this exercise has been so helpful. I don't need to get it all organized. Instead I've started and as I open sites in my bookmarks or find new sites I add them in. KISS! (Keep it simple sister.) Two of the terms that I LOVE, from Catherine Gilroy are "sources of topic authority" and the "magic middle". Anything to help address filtering and time efficiency is golden.

Our Metro Secondary Literacy Network should use this to recommend reading to each other instead of the deluge of emails with attachments and links. It’s going on the agenda this fall!

1 comment:

Jenn said...

I volunteer for the Eat Well Guide (we were in your del.icio.us page in this post). Eat Well has teamed up with the Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, to issue a Local, Organic Thanksgiving Challenge. We're inviting people to take a spin on the Eat Well Guide to find local food and cook at least one local (preferably organic) dish for Thanksgiving, and share recipes at the CU site. Read more about it at the Green Fork. [http://blog.eatwellguide.org/2008/11/take-the-local-organic-thanksgiving-challenge/]. Hope you check us out. Thanks! - Jenn