Thing 13 -- Using Tags

Tagging could be very useful for organizing digital resources because you could assign a variety of keywords to a website so that you could save the sites to fit a variety of topics. I have lot of favorites currently bookmarked on my computer, but it's hard to find a specific website when I need it. Honestly, I've bookmarked so many sites that I tend not to look at them much because it's overwhelming and time-consuming to dig through them to find a particular site I remember saving. I do have my favorites organized by folder, but that is only somewhat helpful. By tagging websites and storing them online, I could give each site several tags and then quickly find the site to fit the topic for any subject I teach or area I'm interested in, especially if the website has overlapping content that fits in with many topics. Right now, I have to go to one folder and hope I find the site I'm trying to find or save the site in more than one folder.

Sharing the tags with others has both good and bad points. The advantage is that you get to see what others have found useful on the same topic. You may discover wonderful sites that you weren't aware of. On the other hand, others may not tag sites the same way you do, or their idea of a "good" site may differ greatly from yours; so you would have to again look through the sites tagged by others to find those relevant to you. Overall, though, I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Before I begin the process of tagging sites online, I will need to think carefully about what tags to use. I want to make sure I pick tags that are descriptive that I will remember and that will make sense. I also want to make sure I pick tags that are both broad enough and narrow enough for me to find websites later when I want to use them.