Lesson 20: Social bookmarks & tagging

In this lesson we will explore further the role of social tagging in the development of the web and, in particular, look at how social tagging helps users find and share knowledge.

We'll begin with some feedback from and discussion of the last lesson and your prep on social software, YouTube and Flickr. If you haven't already done so, your set teacher may use some of this lesson to show you the TED talk on Photosynth (hyperlinking the world's photographs).

del.icio.us.  Some of the your set may already know del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site — in which case they can help explain it. Have a look at What is del.icio.us?. Read all of this, including the sections headed 'What is social bookmarking?' and 'What are tags?'

From 7 things you should know about social bookmarking (Educause, 2007, pdf):

Tagging information resources with keywords has the potential to change how we store and find information. It may become less important to know and remember where information was found and more important to know how to retrieve it using a framework created by and shared with peers and colleagues. Social bookmarking simplifies the distribution of reference lists, bibliographies, papers, and other resources among peers or students.

We'll now look at this video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English.

Examples of del.icio.us accounts created by teachers, students and classes:

A classics class at SPS on del.icio.us

A student account (originating in an English class)

A teacher's account

Sherborne's Physics Dept on del.icio.us

Create a del.icio.us account (if you haven't already got one). Then read How do I get started?.  Please note that the buttons that del.icio.us can add to your browser will not endure from session to session for you at school. Add them to your own devices' browser(s), but at school, if you want to bookmark a page to del.icio.us, you'll probably need to use the posting page (and you'll need to be logged in).

You'll have further questions about del.icio.us and the very useful main help page is here. Pages that we think you should look at include A guide to sharing bookmarks and A guide to discovering bookmarks.

Finally, in the lesson, we'll watch, and discuss, this video about how the web has changed the way we find and access knowledge:

Prep: read Bruce Sterling's Order Out of Chaos and How To Use Del.icio.us To Take Over the World. Write a third blog post, about tagging, and this time also include your thoughts about del.icio.us. Say what you think del.icio.us does and also what else you've now learned about tagging.