So, it is occurring to me as I do this blog, that real people are reading it – at least a few! I feel like my past few entries have been bland, my writing flat. Like I’m doing a checklist, which of course is what I’m doing for the class.
So, I’m working on the Discovery Exercises for Technorati – a service which keeps track of my favorite blogs. So doesn’t my RSS Feed do this also? OK – now I’ve registered my blog. Can’t seem to load a photo because they are all too big. Searched the tags for School Library Learning 2.0 and found 1,295 posts and 12 blogs. Darn, should have added that tag in my blog. Instead I added Library2.0. There are 2,210 posts for that topic and 166 blogs. Wow, big difference for the blogs, but not so much for the posts. When I search posts and get “everything in the known universe”, I also get photos and videos – that is cool. I think my favorite part of all of this is that I feel I’ve been asked into a conversation and its making me think about what I do professionally. I can see already that I’m going to have favorite bloggers and that what I enjoy reading is a personal thing. So this is a very strong tool to help discover favorite bloggers.
Great, she says good naturedly, now I need to go back and make sure my blog entries are tagged. The only one that is coming up is clouds because of a flickr photo I put in. And really my blog isn’t about clouds!
Now I know I’ve read somewhere in all this that all these tools will save me time, but I’m not there yet. I wander off here and then skip over there and then wonder where the hour went.
2 comments:
I agree that it doesn't seem like you're saving much time, but I'm trying to look at like cataloging (which I admit I love!) and once you get a taxonomy set up it should become easier. I'd like to limit my tags as much as possible so there isn't one unique tag for each post, as I've seen in some blogs. However, I also have seen the power of tags, for this experience and at NECC. Someone took the time to create a unique tag for each session so you can find posts for each easily. If only we could control the taxonomy a little more like that, I think Technorati would be even more powerful as a tool.
You mentioned not saving time, don't you think that savings will come once the newness and act of discovery wears off a little. I know I've been flitting all over the place, but when I am focused and purposeful in my searches I tend to spend less time. I think because we're doing this with no particular project in mind we are wandering around more.
Like you, I also have favorite bloggers. I just found Brotherhood 2.0 with John Green and his brother. Very cool. They've committed to not use any text based means to communicate. So they videotape podcasts and post them every day. Funny stuff.
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