Tagging System to help classrooms find one another

I've been reading Wesley Fry at the Speed of Creativity. He is encouraging meaningful commenting on student blogs. He's created a delicious tag of classroom blogs (classroomblogs) to help us find classroom blogs to comment. He says:

Student publishing is key. David is right, we should be very concerned and focused on blog COMMENTS as well as posts. We should focus on the conversation and the discourse by actively and regularly commenting on the blogs of others. And we need to have our students doing the same things.

As I wrote last week in the post “Edifying Student Bloggers,” we should look at the activity of reading and providing constructive feedback to student bloggers as an essential educational task for ourselves and our students.

As we've traded e-mails today I've thought of an interesting point. What if my computer science students were able to easily find other students studying the same thing and comment on what they are finding. What if these classrooms can trade comments?

It seems we should be able to come up with some standard tags that would enable this. For example:

  • 3rdgradescience
  • 3rdgradeamericanhistory
  • 8thgradekeyboarding
  • hsintroductiontocompsci
  • 10thenglishliterature
  • apenglishclass

Another option would be for textbook companies to allow such collaboration through their portals that they've already created. This would help those who have to adhere very closely to standards keep within the guidelines of ever closing curriculum standards.

I think such tags and methods for allowing cross-pollination of ideas could open up a new world for students. Of course, with new ideas, there are always issues that would have to be worked with. However, I think the possibilities are exciting!

We all know that we need to improve writing at most of our schools. Such methods I believe would create forums for excitement among the students.

It is not just about encouraging students to comment. Having them comment on topics relevant to those they are currently learning allow them to apply knowledge they are learning in the classroom and share that with other classrooms.

Should it be done with tags? Delicious? Blink it? Digg it? Its bigger than that! How?

I'm a classroom teacher blogging! I hope that some of the visionaries out there will help us collaborate on such a system of tagging that would be easy and uniform!

Perhaps there is something already out there.

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Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis is a full-time classroom teacher and IT Director in Georgia, USA. She is Mom of three, wife of one, and loves talking about the wise, transformational use of technology for teaching and doing good in the world. She hosts the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast which interviews teachers around the world about remarkable classroom practices to inspire and help teachers. Vicki focuses on what unites us -- a quest for truly remarkable life-changing teaching and learning. The goal of her work is to provide actionable, encouraging, relevant ideas for teachers that are grounded in the truth and shared with love. Vicki has been teaching since 2002 and blogging since 2005. Vicki has spoken around the world to inspire and help teachers reach their students. She is passionate about helping every child find purpose, passion, and meaning in life with a lifelong commitment to the joy and responsibility of learning. If you talk to Vicki for very long, she will encourage you to "Relate to Educate" or "innovate like a turtle" or to be "a remarkable teacher." She loves to talk to teachers who love their students and are trying to do their best. Twitter is her favorite place to share and she loves to make homemade sourdough bread and cinnamon rolls and enjoys running half marathons with her sisters. You can usually find her laughing with her students or digging into a book.

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1 comment

Wesley Fryer February 7, 2006 - 7:37 am

I think we can post within the tag category “classroomblogs.” I am not positive but I think that is possible.

Comments are closed.

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