Hello colleagues
Have you come across the term "folksonomies"?
Well, a folksonomy is a very useful way of collating and tagging relevant websites around a topic or theme. For instance, I am interested in having my students find out the various sightseeing places in Singapore. Instead of getting them to list the places of interest, I can have them tag the sites according to features that distinguish them e.g. 'museums', gardens', 'amusement parks', etc. A website can have more than one tag. The result of tagging the websites you have researched on is a 'tag cloud' which presents the websites in terms of the tags used. The larger a tag appears, the more it has been used, and so forth.
The tag cloud below was created by delicious.
What is great about a tag cloud is that different people can contribute towards it by way of evaluating the tags used or simply adding on new websites that they have come across. In that way, the tag cloud grows and becomes well-designed.
Other than delicious, tag clouds may be displayed differently using Wordle or Word Mosaic. Try this out with your students. I am sure they will not only enjoy it but learn as well in the process of searching for relevant websites and figuring out the most appropriate way to tag the sites. The end result is a collection of places of interest that one could visit in Singapore.
Once again, do share with us your reflections:
- Have you found this a useful social media tool for classroom teaching? Why/Why not?
- Does this tool support any particular theory of learning?
- To what extent will this complement the preparation of your students for coursework?
