The cloud tag for the group is a powerful visual indicator of what items are most important for our group. Like some of the rest of you, I wasn't at all surprised by the presence of edtech448 for the posts. I was surprised by the preponderance of written_information that we posted. These were the majority of my posts too. It seems to indicate that the internet is still more of a repository for words and ideas than for pictures and videos. The cloud also illustrated for me the importance of classification itself. Without a system in place, it is difficult to understand the rhyme or reason for the number of tags in the cloud. For instance, I thought I would have seen more essential elements out there, but the group decided to avoid having the discussion about what an essential element is, and they decided to include other tags that were more general in nature. This was a good, practical decision, and I find it fascinating that the cloud reflects that decision making process.

Okay, now I see the tag cloud, and it's pretty cool. All of what you are sharing is helping me to put some pieces together so that I can better understand this tool.

I'm sure you guys realize that I'm coming into this experience in Diigo late in the game--sorry about that.... I think you all know that I was on vacation; unfortunately, in my work to get the family to the mountains, I missed the internet miner activity last week, so I'm working hard to get it now. Thanks for your patience.

Creating a classification scheme wasn't easy, but it works. At the top of my rubric, I placed these categories: content areas, teaching methods, and administrative. Using these three areas, it was simple to group my essential elements under teaching methods, to separate the various content areas into their appropriate subjects, and to place the various means of teaching into administrative: in other words, I chose to group things such as internet classifications into the adminstrative group, not the method. As there is inevitable crossover, I decided to use the tags to group ideas into dual (or even tri) categories when I these issues came up--like we did intuitively in diigo and delicious. I must say that both of these internet 2.0 utilities have proven quite useful already. I have learned much by reading your insights in diigo. If I had to pick one site to stick with, it would be diigo, but it seems to work best only if I would have another group to work with. And i'm not sure it will be that easy to get the adult learners I work with to follow my lead and engage in the learning curve to use the technology.