For some educators, tagging is ‘it’: New way to find and store information online has implications for schools – eSchool News (Via Educational Technology.) Ray Schroeder’s feed is another I’ve only recently discovered and added to my “Trial” subscriptions. Here he points to an eSchool News article on Tagging. I don’t think the article can really get across what tagging is to someone that doesn’t understand it, but it does a decent job explaining some of the benefits. This excerpt is a good example:
Tagging services have multiple uses. First, they allow web surfers to save hundreds (or even thousands) of favorite web pages under key words. The technology is named after the keyword “tags” that users associate with each page they want to save. (For example, a web page featuring information about Abraham Lincoln could be saved under the tag, “Lincoln.”) For individual users, tagging makes their own favorite pages easy to search and retrieve. Unlike storing addresses in a “favorites” folder on your computer, tagged pages are stored on the web and are accessible from any computer. A tagging site also lets you search among all your stored pages by keyword, eliminating the need to scroll through dozens of sites and remember the order in which your links are saved.
I have not yet really delved into this personally, but may need to as I too consider offering a class on tagging for educators at the OCDE, as Tim Wilson is (according to the article).