Rays of Collective Intelligence within the Web 2.0 environment:
Web 2.0 is aboutWeb usersconnecting together and collectively creating and sharing knowledge. It is an extremely powerful and exciting concept which I find particularly compelling.It is also the basic foundationofthe theory of constructivism. Driscoll (2000),stated that “Learners, are not empty vessels waiting to be filled, but rather active organisms seeking meaning. Knowledge is constructed by learners as they attempt to make sense of their experiences. Constructivists are interested in having learners identify and pursue their own learning goals.”
Ok, moving past the theory now. Tagging is an example of how individuals determine how their own content can be organized and found by others of like mind. There is a term for this called “folksonomy”. This term was apparently coined by Thomas Vander Wal (2005).His original definitionfor the term was that “Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one’s own retrieval. The tagging is done in a social environment (shared and open to others). The act of tagging is done by the person consuming the information.”
However much to the chagrin of the originator of the term… folksonomy seems to have morphed into a new meaning now days and is generally defined as: categorizing things through “collaborative, social tagging”.
Here is another definition from Wikipedia, which I generally try to shy away from as using a solid resource, but nevertheless here it is:Folksonomies are intended to make a body of information increasingly easy to search, discover, and navigate over time. A well-developed folksonomy is ideally accessible as a shared vocabulary that is both originated by, and familiar to, its primary users.
Examples of Tagging & OrganizingCollective Intelligence
43things.com for example, is a rather clever little Website which works by individual’s simply posting their goals they would like to accomplish and then adding their own keyword tags to those goals. Then individuals around the world interested in the same goals can therefore find one another and share their thoughts. This is an intriguing concept to be sure, and a terrific way to find and develop group support and a sense of belonging. Creating a sense of community and defining social presence, is by the way, key for eliminating isolation within online learning environments.
Del.icio.us is immensely popular social bookmarking Website. Basically it is a huge storehouse of all the member’s favorite bookmarks. Once you post your favorite bookmarks obviously they are accessible by any computer. One also utilizes tags to help organize and figure out that favorite bookmark you made last week.
Other examples of tagging sites which provide a new way for people to collectively share, and connect socially include Flickr. With no specific technical knowledge one can share their photographs of family, friends, adventures and projects. In doing so one can organize, search and share stories with others around the world. The best thing it is free and also doesn’t require specific technical knowledge. However there are upgrade packages available for power users.
Now to end our discussion, here is a clever video which helps to describe Web 2.0 by Mike Wesch. “Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist and media ecologist exploring the impacts of new media on human interaction.”
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Driscoll. (2000). Psychology for learning for instruction. Allyn and Bacon: New York.
Del.icio.us. (2007) What is Del.icio.us? Retrieved November 25, 2007, from http://del.icio.us/about/43things.com
Flickr.com. (2007). About Flickr. Retrieved November 25, 2007, from
http://flickr.com/about/
43things.com. (2007) What do you want to do with your life? Retrieved November 25, 2007, from http://www.43things.com/about/view/learn_more
Wikipedia.com (2007). Folksonomy. Retrieved November 26, 2007 fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/folksonomy.
Vanderwal.net (2005). Folksonomy definition and Wikipedia. Retrieved November 27, 2007 from http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog=1750.
Wesch, M. (2007). Web 2.0: The machine is us/ing us. Retrieved December 2, 2007, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&feature=related