OK, now I feel stupid

Looking for the "tag" option on Blogger has reminded me of a lesson on tagging and folksonomy that I did in LIBE 465.  I was so focused on the word "tag" that I didn't notice the "Labels" box at the bottom of my posting area, LOL.  After posting my last entry I went to the Blogger help option and found the information in about 3 seconds.  My plan is to now go back to previous posts to add appropriate tags.

Berger and Trexler (2010) say that tagging is "at the heart of social bookmarking" (p. 45) and I am finding this to be true in my own Web 2.0 explorations.  Good tagging allows us to find information through key words but the trick is using key words that others will also use.  Some librarians, as suggested in Berger and Trexler (2010), are concerned that folksonomy should not replace taxonomy, a more traditional tagging system.  I, like some librarians, do not believe that one has to replace the other.  I believe the two can work together to make searching and finding information more effective for everyone.

Update:  As I was going through to add labels to my posts I discovered that there is a limit of 200 characters.  For my last update post I well exceeded that limit and then had to go back and remove some tags.  This was harder to do than I thought as I was really trying to cover all the topics in my post.  I wish Blogger had a "character count" like Twitter so that I can know when I am nearing my character limit.

References:

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

Progress Update or... inquiry leads to inquiry leads to inquiry...

Well, if I have learned anything in this inquiry project so far it is that inquiry leads to more inquiry.  I sit down ready to post and comment on my learning or to explore one of my inquiry choices and I end up blurry eyed from "clicking" from one site to the next.  Just before beginning this post I was sidetracked by a classmates mention of festisite and had to go check it out.  I actually had to talk myself down from playing on the site so I could complete a more substantial post on my learning blog today, LOL.

This week's small group discussion topic lead me to make some changes in how I am organizing my Web 2.0 world.  Admittedly, I am a "bookmarks" fan - but I just use the bookmarks bar to have easy visual access to the places I visit most.  I had been using my learning blog for this class and LIBE 465 to store links to my classmates' blogs in each class.  Because of my increased PLN, mostly due to Twitter, I realized I was not keeping up with what was happening.

I am a very visual person and need to "see" the links and sites I want to visit regularly.  I signed up for Delicious a year ago, but after the initial set-up and two days of adding "bookmarks" I quickly forgot about it and found it inconvenient.  But alas, I had an AHA moment this week.

I was researching RSS feeds and thought I would check out Google reader.  When I "clicked" the option, lo and behold I am already signed in and there is a list of the class blogs I had subscribed to!  Who knew?  This demonstrated to me how blind I have been to what I am already involved with in the Web 2.0 world.  I did not understand what "subscribe to this blog" meant or that I could easily access this information with one more "click."

Knowing my visual nature I was still concerned that the Google reader feeds required that I go to that Google page, but wait, what's this iGoogle?  Click!  AAAHHHHH, the heavens opened...  This is the answer I have been looking for.  I can add widgets for the things I check regularly and I can make it my Internet home page so it is "in my face" every time I log on.

I know that I need to "live" with this new tool for a bit to get it set up to best meet my needs, but so far I am really liking this organizational tool. (Although it wasn't originally part of my inquiry I think it is a great link for all of the items I am learning about.)  I just added the Google calendar widget today and the Google reader widget is awesome!  I know that I need to be careful not to add too many widgets or this tool might become more of a burden - although I'm not sure I can get rid of the "Hangman" game that Google already had on there, LOL.

I will definitely be introducing iGoogle to a couple of my staff "mentees" for their home pages.  I think they will find this a great way to organize their online social networking.