Simple Subject Sunday: Links and Tags

Doesn't each writer hope that people find their blog interesting and helpful? I believe the answer is yes. Besides writing an interesting article, it helps to make the blog posting accessible through the reader's use of search engines and access to related articles as they read your blog posting.

One way to do that is through the use of links. Links related to other posts pointing the reader to the topic of interest. Since time is of the essence, links need to be accurate.

The link in a posting should take the reader to the exact posting the blogger wants them to access. When reading your posts, a reader should not have to wander through the desert to find your blog posts related to the search topic, because they will often give up....due to lack of time to focus on this effort.

I also discovered, through my own research, that blogs need to have layers of organization for ease of access. Links and appropriate tag clouds can represent a necessary equivalent of an online bibliography.

WORDLE: A Practical Application

WORDLE has a function that allows users to submit any del.icio.us user name to make a non-linguistic representation of bookmark tags. You can analyze the use of various tags within your bookmarks and look for areas of great emphasis, synonymous tags or areas of little emphasis. Each of these areas of analysis can drive future teaching and writing related to your professional development plan and the school's curriculum map.

I created my delicious WORDLE that could be used formative assessment, summative assessment or self-assessment by analyzing this snapshot from November 10, 2007 of n2teaching delicious bookmarks

Here is another version of the same set of bookmarks on the same day that contains more words. Controlling the number of total words is an aspect of WORDLE that you can change within the layout function. Hopefully, these ideas will lead you to think of more ways to use WORDLE as an interactive tool, not just a toy.

Part of the Cleanup Crew

Periodically, I join the virtual cleanup crew, and we organize my various online homes and storage units. Today, I worked with del.icio.us to pull together some related articles.

How do I cleanup the data tags? I find or create ONE data tag that relates to all MY bookmarks I want to group. I do this in a similar way I organize my kitchen cabinets to make MY life more effective and creative.

By synchronizing related data tags, I also speed up work flow.

Previously, I discussed the importance of appropriate data tags. I want to explain my thinking about finding a common factor, a data tag, that can synchronize all bookmarks that I will want to access later....when I need them, as a unit.

Initially, while I bookmark resources, I try to use as many data tag synonyms I can think of AT THAT MOMENT of bookmarking. In del.icio.us, I use the data tag cloud, ordered alphabetically, to find related data tags. The size variation tells me the number of times that I used a particular data tag.

As always, I agree that you may use any bookmark organizational tool, yet I am suggesting one way to organize your bookmarks that I developed over several years of datamining. Try this method. From here, you will most likely adapt an organizational style that works best for you.

Later, after searching for synonyms among my data tag cloud in del.icio.us, I will examine a particular set of bookmarks that are tagged with the current topic of focus. For instance, the data tags cyberspace and virtual world are synonymous with one another, but I don't know that all my bookmarks with the tag cyberspace are also tagged virtual world.

Since virtual world seems to be gaining momentum as the most used synonym referring to interactive, online, social networks, I will add that data tag to all bookmarks that contain the cyberspace tag.

All I hope to achieve is to find related bookmarks about my current topic of interest. That is why I frequently join the cleanup crew to run organizational tests on my data tags of interest. This process is now easily accomplished. Afterwards, I can access all my del.icio.us bookmarks on a topic of interest when I need them.

Try this technique. I think you will find it very effective. Remember, you will want to focus on a FEW topics each time you join the cleanup crew. I suggest that you will be more effective if you don't try to cleanup the whole del.icio.us storage file at once. Over a period of time, you will find clarity within your bookmark topics. In all probability, you will increase your overall productivity within the area of accessing the resources you want.

Permalinks: Improve the Validity of Your Blog

Have you ever searched for a particular topic, found what seemed like a great resource, only to discover that the link is dead?

Finding dead links is a frustrating experience. There are ways to avoid that happening to your own blog postings. One way is to use the PERMALINK. A permanent link to your blog posting is made through the use of a tiny bit of code that can even a New Bee can cut and paste into their blog postings.

Permalinks stand as one of the more elusive bits of proper standardization in archiving that I will continue to develop. I believe Permalinks are as important as tags, and everyone who reads my work knows the extreme importance I place on tags and the display of tag clouds.

As per my usual course of learning a new skill, I always begin with the Help function of whatever software or web application I am using. Always remember, "Help is my Friend!" One of the first references made to permalinks was the blog post, On Permalinks and Paradigms, and I would recommend it to anyone learning to use Permalinks.

If you have had experiences with permalinks, would you share those experiences with us here in the comments?