The Summer 2010 8 Things course has now closed. If you have questions, please contact the facilitator at sisd8things@gmail.com.


Thing 8

Tagging and Social Bookmarking

We have previously explored tags when searching for and labeling photos in Flickr. Tagging is the process of assigning keywords or “tags” to online content. In the same way you stick labels on physical objects, you use tags to label digital elements such as web links, blog posts, photos, or other user-generated content. Once you assign a tag to an object, you can easily find that object later by searching the tag. You can assign multiple tags to a single object, and different people can assign different tags to the same object. Tagging is very “Web 2.0” because it supports social networking, sharing, and empowering users as well as producers of information. Tagging represents a significant shift in the way digital data is sorted, saved, searched, and shared in the 21st century.

Other terms related to tagging are folksonomy and tag cloud. Folksonomy is derived from "folk" + "taxonomy" and is very different from traditional subject indexing. Perhaps the most important strength of a folksonomy is that it directly reflects the vocabulary of the users. A tag cloud is simply a visual representation of a collection of tags with font size representing frequency of use.

Social bookmarking is a system for saving a website so you can return to it later. Instead of saving “bookmarks” or “favorites” on a single computer, you save them to a web site accessible from any computer. And instead of organizing bookmarks into a subject folder, you can assign them multiple labels (tags) so they can be associated with a number of topics. Your bookmarks can be shared publicly or you can save them as private - viewable by only you. Social bookmarking is also powerful in that you can search what others have found useful. There are a number of social bookmarking sites. We'll be using one called Delicious (formerly called del.icio.us). Here's a video to explain social bookmarking:

Discovery Resources
To get an idea of how social bookmarking and tagging work, read the following articles:
Discovery Exercises

To complete Thing 8, you must:

A. Explore Delicious

B. Create your own Delicious account

C. Reflect on Thing 8 on your blog

A. Explore Delicious

One of the greatest advantages of social bookmarking is that you can access and add to your collection of bookmarks from any computer. Here are a few ideas for using Delicious in your teaching:

  • Build a shared reading list
  • Conduct research and share with peers
  • Share student bookmarks for a classroom project
  • Use a group tag to share resources with a working group
  • Share links to current news items related to classroom discussions
Many users find that the real power of Delicious is in the social networking aspect, which allows you to see how other users have tagged similar links and also discover other websites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another user's filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool, each user's filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network. Watch this video and then spend some time exploring Delicious on your own. Be sure to check out the 8 Things bookmarks!

B. Create Your Own Delicious Account

Now create your account. Here's a video tutorial to walk you through the process.

Then you can begin saving bookmarks. Watch this video to learn how, and then save at least 10 bookmarks to your account.

C. Reflect - Blog Prompt for Thing 8

Reflect on your experiences with social bookmarking and tagging. For a reminder on blog post guidelines, click here. Post your Delicious username in this blog post so that others can view the bookmarks you have chosen to share! Make sure that you title your post "Thing 8."

  • Share your thoughts about tagging. Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why?
  • What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?
  • Describe your experiences with Delicious and social bookmarking.
  • How might social bookmarking impact your teaching or professional development?
Bonus: Wordle
Wordle is an easy to use tool which creates word clouds from the text of your choice. Words are displayed in an appealing graphic format, and their size is based on the frequency in which they appear in your selected text. Users can copy and paste text or choose a website from which Wordle can gather text. Wordle even has the ability to create a visual representation of your Delicious bookmarks! Users can then change the colors and fonts of their creations.

Here's a Wordle representation of this blog: (Click to enlarge)

For some ideas on how to use Wordle in the classroom, check out these resources:

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