“…during one presentation at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Boston, Raluca Budiu, a user-experience specialist for the Nielsen Norman Group, asked the audience whether typing in tags for articles would help them remember key concepts. The answer, according to her research, is no. Users remembered less after typing in tags than after simply reading an article online.”
I have never thought much how I use tags; someimte I do and sometimes I just want to be bothered. And since I have never reflecyed about it, I never paid much attention to how useful the act of tagging is.
I was quite surprised to read the outcomes of once researcher’s work in which she discovered that becuase the act of adding tagsreduces the amount of time that the user is paying attention to the actual content of the article itself.
More of Raluca Busiu’s work centers on discovering ways in which to minimize the human cost of participating in social media. She talked about a tagging system that “lets users click words in an article to create tags, rather than typing them in at the end.”
This simple change in workflow supposedly improved a user’s recall ability.
This makes me wonder about the degree of signifigance in the improvement; what exactly was the user able to recall after using this new system called SparTug.us than before.
This has me intrigued enoughto check out the new tagging system. But what is your experience been with respect to tages?
Do you use them?
If so, why?
What are the ways in which you make use of them?
PS – You will notice that I have used tagged this entry with both a Category and a tag…….
If we begin to explore the issues and causes of stagnation in education, the students and the student experience are both central to the discussion. What is the student experience of the classical models of education that exist today? In what ways are today’s students unique, different from the past? Where can we get an insider look? How about a group of 200 Kansas State University students who made a YouTube video on the subject…
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Last fall, Professor of Cultural Anthropology Michael Wesh collaborated with 200 students who surveyed themselves and created this video summarizing “some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime”:
I’ve been thinking a lot of about digital identities lately and all of the time that goes into crafting and maintaining them. It’s work, that is for sure. And somewhat reluctant to take on more work online than I already have, I have neglected my latest Facebook account that I recently started (again). I just don’t really want to log in to and check another online space at this time, although getting around to updating and maintaining it is inevitable.
Cole Camplese had an interesting post a week or two back about all the time it required to form new identities on new sites and how nice it would be if you could import your identity from one site to another, so you wouldn’t have to constantly recreate it. I am curious what Gen Y’s think of this option. Is it a blessing to be able to recreate yourself on different sites, especially for the younger generations whose identities are still evolving? When should permanent digital identity creation begin? During high school, during college, after both? (Harvard’s Digital Natives group has some interesting posts on this topic: see The Permanent Record and the rebuttal in The Permanent Record Part 2.)
Reading more on Cole’s blog, I stumbled upon Millis High School’s Web 2.0 and 21st Century Learning Wiki. What’s most impressive about this work, aside from the excellent content on the site, is that it was put together and is maintained by students (who also incidentally read Cole’s blog… wow!). Today’s high school students are savvier than ever about social networking, 21st century learning, and digital identities, and the generation after them will likely have a much different, more integrated experience as these technologies continue to overlap, evolve, and make their way into educational settings.
When I poll (informally, on elevator rides and in cafes) our university students here and ask them what they think of social networks and learning networks being on the same platform — say for example, your Blackboard site is located in Facebook — they are vehemently opposed to the idea. They want to keep their online social networks and learning networks separate — that’s they way it has always been for them, and that’s they way they like it. And, you’ve got to understand their point. They were the generation that explored and popularized online social networking before the rest of us even knew what was happening. (And unfortunately, most of these students have yet to experience the benefits of combined social networking and learning, at least in an educational setting.)
But the next generation, the Millennials, will be much more accustomed to learning communities and social networks being one in the same. How will this change their thinking and their creation of online identities? In some ways, Gen Y had the advantage of being able to explore this space and create themselves in their own Gen Y universe, before the rest of us caught up, understood, or could guide them in their interactions. The Millennials will have (and are already having) a much different experience.
