Tag You're It

Actually, I titled this post, 'The Dilemas of Tagging', but thought it was too dry a title for a post. You see, I've yet to take the 'tag plunge'. I dabble a bit here and there, but frankly, I'm at a loss as to how to do it in a manner that will be meaningful.

Wikipedia.org defines 'tag' as:
"A tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system. On a website in which many users tag many items, this collection of tags becomes a folksonomy."

It's sooooooo complicated. There's no one set of rules. Take for example conferences. I've got a conference coming up, and I'm wondering should I tag items 'NYSCATE', 'NYSCATE08', 'NYSCATE2008', or all three. Then there's the tag that I should add if I'm posting about a session, so I might need to add something like 'SATPM14' (that's a legit tag, since it's the tag that has been assigned to my Visual Literacy workshop -- Saturday, in the afternoon, and I'm not sure what the '14' stands for). Then I might need to add a tag for visual literacy. Should it be 'visual literacy', 'visual lit', 'vis lit', maybe hyphenated?

Everyone I know has their own set of tags developed. For example, I like the tag 'CIO', which in my book means 'check it out' -- something I need to look at because I might want to use. Then there's 'read', which means I'd like to spend time reading this when I have a moment. Then there's 'www', which in my book means I'd like to add this to my school's website. And how about *, which means LOOK AT THIS NOW IT'S VERY, VERY, VERY IMPORTANT!!!

And now it's not just photographs that need tagging, but social bookmarking websites, and now posts on blogs! When will it ever end??????

If you have a resource that can help me make heads or tails out of this tagging business, please leave a comment below. And Steve, if you can, could you make one of the challenges on '30 Days To Be a Better Blogger' about tagging? And DON'T EVEN get me started on which items I should hyperlink in a blog post! LOL

Image Source: 'Folksonomy' www.flickr.com/photos/45581782@N00/5128681

30D2BBB - A Heartfelt Thanks

To me this was a no-brainer. Steve wrote, "The first few months of blogging is always the most difficult because it largely feels like your talking to yourself." I expected this to be the case, since I had only written three posts in three months. A 'monoblogue' (aka 'a monologue blog') is what I figured I had penned. Imagine my shock (yes, there's a Flickr photo of me staring at my monitor with my jaw hanging down! LOL) when I received notification that someone had actually commented on my (mono)blog(ue)! Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach left a comment on my blog, a short & to-the-point comment that combined with Steve's '30 Days to Be a Better Blogger' challenge has inspired me to put fingers to keyboard again.

So Sheryl, this one's for you...

Image Source: 'Weekend Love' www.flickr.com/photos/10565597@N00/2871346522

30D2BBB - Day 2 - Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street

Day 2 and we're already talking about traffic? Steve is challenging us to include a way to gather data from our blog in Day 2 of the Challenge. I trust Steve so I decided to take the plunge (although in all honesty when he started talking about inserting code I started getting cold feet!). I decided to go with Google Analytics (after all as a GCTer & since I host my blog on Blogger it did make the most sense -- at the time). I registered and then got to the page with the code and then some sort of cryptic directions about going to your template page and locating the 'body' (oops, tried to put in those side arrows and forward slashes and I just go a red 'ERROR - Your HTML cannot be accepted' notice across the top of my screen!) tag and that's when I almost decided that this Challenge might be a little out of my league. But I clicked on some help for those with a Blogspot domain, printed out the 9 steps and was on my way. Phew!

Now...my only question is...SO NOW WHAT? Do I get an e-mail? Do I have to go somewhere to get my data? Anybody have a simple 'how to' for accessing & reading the Google Analytics?

And if this is only Day 2 of the Challenge, WHAT will Steve have us do for Day 3?

Image Source: Flickr bigjay13579

30D2BBB - Day 1 - All About Me

Day 1 of the Challenge:

I actually removed the 'All About' widget in the sidebar when I first created this blog. Didn't feel like I wanted anyone to really know who was writing this blog. But Steve made a great argument for the reasons why there not only should be an 'About Me' section, but why it should hold a prominent position on your blog. Makes sense, but I'm still hesitant. Not quite sure why, but then again I can 'change', 'add' and even 'delete' it if I want so I guess I'll leave it up there for now.

Since I'm a fan of the Happy Bunny line, I thought I'd change the title to 'It IS All About Me!'.

Oops, just went back and reread today's challenge and realized I needed to say something about what this blog is about. Oh, oh...I could easily get carried away with this one. OK, Ed Tech Diva...focus, focus, focus...think 'Twitter'! 140 characters or less.

Challenge for Me...Challenge for You

This is just the push I need to work on this blog. Steve Dembo of Discovery Educator Network has created a challenge for himself and has decided to offer it out to his PPLN -- 'Be a Better Blogger in Just 30 Days' for the month of November. I figure I have a zillion post-its and audio files on my digital voice recorder filled with ideas that I would like to post about. The problem is not the amount of content, the problem is being challenged to find the time, to refine the 'look and feel' of my blog and to, hopefully by November's end, have made blogging part of my daily (OK, OK...weekly LOL) existence.

I hope you'll consider joining us in this challenge!