Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Folksonomy?

What is a folksonomy?

Thomas Vander Wal, the information architect credited with coining the term "FOLKSONOMY".
Normal ordinary humans = folks
Scientific Classification = taxonomy
In other words, a folksonomy is a user generated taxonomy used to categorize and retrieve Web pages, photographs, Web links and other web content labels called tags.

Why do I care?
Folksonomies, or tagging, can help you locate information that has been selected by other humans who share the same interest or expertise. Search engines are not human (of course!) and there fore not very intuitive.

What are some folksonomic resources? (tools for tagging)
OCW Finder http://ocwfinder.com
OpenCourseWare sites provide free and open learning materials from university courses such as syllabi, lecture notes, demonstrations, video, exam questions, and other materials. The goal of the service is to provide users an extremely easy way to find OCW materials.
Send2Wiki http://send2wiki.com
Send2wiki is a service that helps users pull content from any web page directly into a wiki. The goal of the service is to make it extremely easy to build derivative works, especially of open educational resources (OER). The Send2wiki button can be embedded in webpages by site owners, or installed as a bookmarklet by users.
Make a Path http://makeapath.com
Make a Path is a site where learners and educators can sequence web pages, creating paths through web resources for others or for themselves.
Ozmozr http://ozmozr.com
Ozmozr is a tool that includes a number of services: an identity aggregation service, a web-based RSS aggregator, a sharing tool, and a group tool. Ozmozr allows learners to locate and easily share web-resources with their friends and colleagues.
Annorate http://annorate.com
Annorate is a combination annotation and rating service. The goal of the service is to make it extremely easy to add annotations and ratings to any webpage, particularly webpages with educational content.

Now you know. Time to get folksonomic!

No comments:

Post a Comment