Tags

A tag is a keyword or term used to classify content by means of a folksonomy. Tags are usually chosen informally and personally by the author/creator of the item. Typically, an item will have one or more “tags” associated with it, as part of some classification software or system.

An education web page hosted on a web server or blog server which supports tagging, might have the tags History, Discipline, Exams, Basket Games, and Timetable. A human reader can probably tell the purpose of the page by quickly scanning the list of tags. Typically, the server would display the tags in a list on that page, with each tag displayed as a web link leading to an index page listing all web pages which use that tag. This allows a reader to locate quickly all pages which have been associated with the term “History”.

If the server supports tag searching, a reader would be able to find all pages that use a particular set of tags, such as “Boy Scout” and “Exams”.

If the page’s author wishes to reclassify the page, all that is required is for them to change the list of tags. In this case, the author could add the tags “Malacca”, and “Algebra” to their page. All connections between pages are automatically tracked and updated by the server software. There is no need to relocate the page within a complex hierarchy of categories.

E.g. Flickr allows photo submitters to categorize their images by use of keyword “tags” (a form of metadata), which allow searchers to easily find images concerning a certain topic such as place name or subject matter

Flickr provides rapid access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. Because of its support for user-generated tags, Flickr repeatedly has been cited as a prime example of effective use of folksonomy.

Read how Tagging are being used in Schools and Education – eSchool News Online – For some educators, tagging is ‘it’