Tag Back

I had never heard of tagging as it relates to computers. I can see that placing tags on items can help in finding a specific item. The thing I liked was, that you could use so many tags that you could not help but to find what you are looking for. With tagging you can use several tags for one item. This allows for a vast variety of cross references. Before tagging, if you are like me, you would write the URL on a piece of paper and hope you did not lose the paper; which I usually managed to do. All in all, tagging looks like a great way to manage your information whether it is pictures or data or whatever.



I can’t even guess how many times I have stumbled onto a site I really liked and did not save it in my favorites, only to find out that I could not remember how to get back to it later. I would get so frustrated and want to throw the computer out of the window. It was not the computers fault, but mine for not saving it my favorites. I like the idea of being able to find something even if you have to go at it from a different direction. I like the way it keeps track of how many times a tag is used and that it draws associations to make the tag clouds, which is called folksonomies.

Chris Betcher’s video is a good introduction to tagging and folksonomy. I think it would neat to have my students go through and tag several appropriate sites that could or would be helpful in the classroom. Sites that might help in understanding a concept or that might enhance a lesson. This way the student will have contributed to the class and maybe boost his or her self-esteem.