The Power of Tagging

I am so excited!!! I know this doesn't have anything to do with reflecting on my actual blog but I was pretty pumped about what I saw. I wanted to show the power of tagging. I showed it to my students this week and never got around to doing anything more with it. Tonight, when I looked on our classroom blog I had a student who was trying out the idea. You can see that she has tagged her post quite accordingly. We're also working on adding voice to our writing and you can see she is well on her way to getting it. Sometimes you just need to put the idea out there and see what they come up with. If you wanted to comment on the blogs, just click on the picture.

Hope you enjoy this little tidbit of information

Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students Part 2 Final Current Event

Photo courtesy of Flickr (cc)

Hello Everyone,

This is our last current event for this course. I was going to post about the Dare to Care presentation put on by Lisa Dixon-Wells about bullying and Cyberbullying. It's fabulous!! If your school is dealing with bullying or cyberbulling I would highly recommend having them come to your schools.

Langwitches posted her second blog post in her series on blogging, Learning About Blogs FOR Your Students Part 2. If felt it was relevant this week considering our discussion about the progression we've gone through as bloggers. You must watch the video by Derek Sivers. He puts everything into perspective about why we should share what we know. I feel the Langwitch blog is an great example of complex or at least real blogging. I hope you enjoy reading her blog as much as I do.

Guide for Teachers who want to start blogging #9 Current Event

I feel this is an important blogging site to share with others. As this course comes to a close soon, many of us have began a journey into the blogging world that we wouldn't have expected to take. This blog will help with such a journey.

I have been following Langwitches Blog for over a year and I just love what she shares and how she explains her learning and that of her students. Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano has an amazing ability to make you want to become a better teacher of technology. She makes it look so easy. If you need an example of a good blog to follow, I would recommend this one. This blog clearly explains and provides examples of how technology can be successfully integrated into your classroom. 
Several weeks ago, she posted this How to guide for teachers called Stepping It Up - Learning about blogs FOR your students. This guide will help you and your students become better bloggers. It is in the beginning stages of construction and I know more great posts will be coming. She has already written a post on her first guideline, Reading. I would highly recommend subscribing to this blog and reading more about the other six parts to being a successful blogger not just for yourself but your students as well.
Thank you Silvia for all of your hard work and dedication to blogging and helping others become better as well.

Changes in my Google Reader

I love the new look of Google Reader. I think it was last Monday or Tuesday was when I saw the changes. It's cleaner looking, less cluttery and far more simple looking. 

I've been doing a whole lot more tagging than I ever had. Yet again, tagging becomes really important to finding posts you like or would like to return back to. I've discovered that the tags are kept at the bottom of your Blogger list.

 

I think they are very much like folders, when you click on a tag it redirects it to the blogs you've tagged. I'm still not sure how others can have access to your tags in order to find the posts you've tagged but I feel it's in the permission settings you give your Google Reader and who you want to have access. 

I love when you read a blog post how it turns yellow. It's so easy to keep track of the what you've just done. 

In my inquiry, I knew I needed to go through and de-clutter the blogs I follow. I was following over 150 blogs and I just couldn't keep up. Over the summer I went a bit, yes, just a bit 'subscription' crazy. I was subscribing to any blog that looked interesting, fun to read, had great pictures, and had to do with primary or grade two. I've been trying to see which blogs post frequently and which ones I actually read and I've weeded through and gotten rid of ones I don't look at or quickly scroll over. It's very hard getting rid of blogs. It's a bit like taking outcomes out of curriculum, we know some need to go but we feel they're all important. As it turned out some had to go. I can always go back and remove more at a later date, baby steps. 

I am happy with the changes, but I'm always going to the left of the blog title to star the blog for future reference and it's not there anymore. Instead, Google has added it to the right of the title. It's going to take a bit of getting use to but I know I'll be able to adapt.

Hope your enjoying some of the changes as well.

Playing and Learning With Tags

Tag Cloud from The Math Whisperer

Berger and Trexler state (as cited from Kroski, 2005) "Tagging is not about the right way or the wrong way to categorize something and it is not about accuracy and authority, it's about remembering." Here in lies part of the problem with my tagging system. In the past, I have been tagging but more so now since it has become a major focus of my inquiry project. I need to have common words I remember and an organizing structure for the tags I use in other Web 2.0 tools or for tagging for reference to refer back to.

The library system of taxonomy has always alluded me and the system of folksonomy has done the same until reading Berger and Trexler's (2010) chapter on social bookmarking. I have discovered that tagging is a vital way of staying organized and allowing others to find what you have tagged. 

I now know why tagging is important. The big step is to remember what my tagging structure is and continually use it. Kind of like finding a filing system or storage system that works for you and using it and modifying it as needed. 

Russ Goerend (2011) talks about using the first letter of each word when he is tagging student files in Evernote. Here is the link for the video (I was unable to add it to this blog) http://screentuts.posterous.com/my-thoughts-and-strategies-on-tags-and-notebo

For example, word work for Bob might become ww-Bob as a tag in Evernote. I liked this idea for Evernote especially when you want to tag a students note for quick reference.

Berger & Trexler (2010) mention "tagging as performing seven functions for bookmarks:

the first four functions are intrinsic to the tagger and include:"

• The first function is to identify what or who the Web site is about.
• The second function is to identify what it is. Is it a blog, podcast, tweet, etc? 
• The third function would be to identify who owns it. For example, Berger & Trexler, Russ Goerend, etc.
• The forth function would be to refine the categories. This particular one I understand it to be about making your tags simple to understand. 

Berger and Trexler (2010) go on to mention the other three functions as being personal to the tagger.

• The fifth being identifying qualities and characteristics.
• The sixth being a self-reference system.
• And the final function of organizing by task. For example,  read later,  masters, Web 2.0 tools (p. 46).

After reading this page I knew I'd found a system I could potentially try but tweak it so it works for me.  I liked the first three functions and the last one for sure. This means now when I tag something in Diigo, Flickr, Podcasting, Reader or any of my other Web 2.0 tools I will be trying to identify what or who it is about, what it is, who is the author, and organizing them according to the category it should belong to (e.g. technology, Web 2.0, master, education, primary, etc). I am hoping with a small organizational system my tagging will become a bit easier for me to find and relate to. This is a classification system I feel I can remember and use often when tagging on the Internet. If you are at all wondering about how to tag, what tags are all about or how to tag you should read the chapter called Social Bookmarking in Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World by Pam Berger and Sally Trexler.

References

Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Russ Goerend (Producer). (2011). My thoughts and strategies on tags and notebooks in evernote  [Screencast]. Retrieved from http://screentuts.posterous.com/my-thoughts-and-strategies-on-tags-and-notebo

Current Event #2 - 10 Reasons Your Students Should Blog

Here is my Current Event #2
10 Reasons Your Students Should Blog
It comes from Matt Ray (aka Mr. Foteah) blog - From the desk of Mr. Foteah. I found this article last week while I was on Twitter and knew I had to share it with all of you. I believe whole heartedly in everything he is saying. Students are engaged and it provides them with a voice to share their thoughts and feelings about certain topics. Take a look at my trash bin on my computer. There are 121 comments and posts from my grade 2's in the past 3 weeks. I can't stop them nor do I want to. They are engaging and motivated to write. What more could a teacher ask for?


I especially enjoyed point #10 when he discusses instant engagement because I am seeing just that with my students. They can't wait until it's computer class or to go home and write. I've got one student who has written every night and not just 2 or 3 sentences, but more. As teachers we are always wanting to motivate our students to write and Matt Ray has given us 10 reasons why you should get your students to blog as soon as possible. Take caution because it can become addicting for them.
Hopefully you will start your students on the blogging journey. Kidblog.org is a fantastic site to get your students started.
April