This week I've been looking at tagging. I watched the 12 minute del.icio.us tutorial and thought what a great tool. There is so much you can do to organize your web stuff with tagging. And Technorati site was great for people who are into entertainment. Anybody who is really comfortable with the web and uses different computers would get great use out of tagging. I would imagine it would be a great tool in any kind of research.
I can't believe how far behind I am with the web. I am still in the typewriter days of technology. I write my thoughts for my blog on paper first so I can get organized. I don't think I could type without doing that first. I know many people who are further behind than me and I wonder about the future with such different levels of ability of the public in regards to computers. In the future will it be like the old days of having literate and illerate people only now it will be computer literacy. Which is another way of saying unless I learn more tagging is way too confusing for me to use.
5 comments:
Just think of tagging as a form of filing - except that you aren't limited to putting each thing you are filing into a single folder - you can put each single thing (web site, etc.) into multiple folders! That's one of the great things about Gmail, for me, is the "tagging" that you can do with labels. In Outlook, you have to pick a folder and stick your email in that folder and that folder only - even if the email touches on several different subject. With Gmail's labeling system (which is just another form of tagging), you can put each email you receive into as many different folders as you need. It's the same thing with del.icio.us - you can categorize each website in multiple ways using tags - much better than choosing a single folder in your bookmarks application that comes with your browser!
I also wanted to comment on your computer literacy statement. I've often said that in the future, the "classes" in America - at least - will be defined by the amount of knowledge and control you have over computers. Reading (hopefully!!) will be pretty much ubiquitous, so the only thing that will separate the haves from the have-nots is the ability to use computers effectively.
You are doing great, Karen!! You'll get lots of chances to practice tagging as we go along in the lessons!!
I think computer literacy, like fluency in other things, is about comfort level and familiarity. Many people become overwhelmed or intimidated by the new technology and either don't try or give up. The comparison to reading is great, because just like learning to read you have to keep practicing in order to learn it. Of course with technology the alphabet keeps changing so you'll always need to practice! :)
I agree with you Karen. I too, am far behind on the Web. I am really struggling through this maze of information. I am trying to get a handle on this tagging information... so far all I have grasped is that it is a form of filing. Wish me luck.
I also, write my posts in a separate document - well not in hand written - but in a word document. I worry about posting something and then not being able to revise (which I'm sure can be done), but for now its easier to stick with formats I know.
However, I did learn in a writing class, that people often have such inhibitions to commiting words to a document, that emotionally, it is sometimes easier to write stuff down on a notepad, with a big label "ROUGH DRAFT" just in case someone reads it and thinks it a finished product.
So probably a bit of both things going on.
Re: Debbie - that's pretty much it, Debbie - tagging is just a form of online filing. It's cataloging from the bottom up! The people creating the content get to decide what the vocabulary is rather than the vocabulary being imposed from the top (as it is in Library of Congress subject headings, for example).
Re: Qhyrrae - I know a lot of people who do that for many different reasons. One of your co-workers tends to write everything out in Word before he posts it to the Internet because of the spell-checking that Word provides. One thing that you can do is check out Google Docs & Spreadsheets - it's a feature of the Gmail application and the link is on your Gmail page at the top left - to post. You can write the posts in that app and leave them to sit for a bit while you think about them, then post them directly from the document. I've done that a couple of times and it seems to work pretty nicely!
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