Group items tagged

Create a tagging schema taxonomy: (n) the study of the general principles of scientific classification If you've had anything to do with organizing information, you've heard this term.  In the web world, site managers spend weeks developing classification systems for their content so their search features will work properly.  Now for a new version - folksonomy.  Folksonomy is the same thing as taxonomy only without the education.  Folksonomy describes the grassroots classification systems developing as more and more "tag" platforms appear online.  While some  tags are appearing as standards, it's still quite a free-for-all out there. 

I use Diigo to manage my bookmarks.  Anytime I find a page I want to save, I tell Diigo to bookmark it for me using the tags I assign that page.   Later - when I want a list of all the genealogy blogs I've bookmarked - I just click on my "genblog" tag on my Diigo page to view them. Because I have included surname tags on all the family photos I've uploaded to Flickr, I can send anyone requesting Barker information one link that displays all my Barker photo collection. The related articles section at the bottom of this post was created using Diigo to display all the links I've saved related to a specific topic (tag).

Because I use these systems daily, I've created my own tag system - a folksonomy - that I use across each of the different tagging applications/platforms I use.  For genealogy items I use the following tags: genealogy (for everything genealogy) genblog (any blog dealing with genealogy topics) genapp (genealogy software) gendex (a genealogy index - like Cindi's List) genpub (a genealogy publication) gendata (a genealogy data source) surnames for each family I'm researching location names - city, county and state - for areas I'm researching Every tagging site allows multiple tags.  I bookmark every article I write beginning with my site tag (familymatters for this blog) and then topic specific tags.  That [and Diigo's tools] is how I'm able to collect my earlier posts for a related articles list.  It's so flexible that I can create a list of only my articles or any articles I've bookmarked with a specific topic keyword. Tags are becoming an important component of your research toolbox so spend a few minutes developing a plan - a folksonomy - of keywords for your research.  Anyone who's interested in developing a standard for genealogy tags, please let me know in the comments.  My tags are very handy for my research, but "our" tags can help us all!

With the use of a tool such as webslides, students could then view the web site with the article or link to the primary source of the research. The students could view the websites with annotations by the teachers to support the students’ current level of understanding of the material or add additional information or questions to enhance the instruction. Students could then work in their groups to discuss their findings to their peers. This would allow students to come to their own conclusions from the information that they are presented. The assessment could be the presentation of their findings and conclusions via a posting to the class website or some other tool that would allow them to present what new ideas they synthesized and not a high tech presentation with little to no substance. Students would work in the same manner that other scientists around the world are by looking at the new data from research. The article was posted on the 20th of this month, two days ago, and students could be researching about the discovery tomorrow the 23rd. This changing of ideas also illustrates to students the way in which scientific knowledge changes and gets refined in light of new information from researchers. So could this lesson be taught without computer technology? Absolutely but technology allows the instruction to be much more fluid and connected. The teacher could run off all the articles, write on them and make copies for the class, but the exchange of information would likely not be as fluid.

Diigo @ DEMOfall 07 - A True 3D Information App?

Diigo.com announced their re-launch today with an information network unlike any we have seen in  scope or capability. The new Diigo network being unveiled at DEMOfall 07 creates global communities around data, information, interests and knowledge. These new communities engage and connect people around the content they collect and use. Diigo is already one of the most useful bookmarking and research sites on the Web. The integration of Webslides and the power of "writing the Web" makes Diigo perhaps the Web's first truly 3 dimensional tool. I spoke with Diigo Co-Founder Maggie Tsai on Friday about their deep and groundbreaking vison. I covered Webslides a couple of weeks ago, but honestly did not envision the depth or scope of Diigo's potential. Maggie demonstrated the capability of a development nearly as complex and difficult to encapsulate as the semantic search engine's technology. The simple truth of Diigo combined with Webslides is that with continued refinements Diigo could well be the mega site imagined by many for Web 3.0. Diigo Plus Webslides Diigo users can create groups, lists, collaborative forums, do research, annotate or comment on pages and essentially build layers of data and knowledge atop any Web page. The concept of a multi-layered Web is difficult to grasp, but Maggie's team have begun to capture the power of what content-centric (their word my understanding) collaboration can do. "Writing" to the Web via sticky notes, annotations and highlighted elements combined with various collaborative elements is power for more than doing a research project. With the addition of Webslides - essentially an interactive, selective browser/player within a browser - Diigo provides a multifaceted platform for unbelievable collaboration and monetization potential. Diigo also unveiled another crucial element for "directing" data at users with their Webslides embeddable widget. This tool allows users to embed Webslides bookmark or RSS shows inside pages and blogs. These shows can be customized to express any number of topical or thematic blog posts, topical articles, product reviews, real estate offerings or just about anything one can imagine.

A Tall Order Diigo is certainly a fantastic individual or collaborative research tool, but inserting a platform like this into what we might call "the hub" (the center of what people do) of the Web has deeper implications. Bookmarking and social networking has seen massive appeal. The idea of wrapping users up in this core of data and knowledge has been touched upon by sites like Wikia, Digg, Stumble Upon, Facebook and many others in the various venues. All of these great sites gather content that is acted on and sometimes enhanced by users, but the data remains rather static or 2 dimensional for the user. Stumbled Upon comes closest to letting users "filter" the Web and its data but even there the great volume of information is lost or scattered with time. Diigo's methodology effectively turns Diigo into a Web within a Web of filtered, searchable and dynamic information.