Books & tags

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (2000)
by the National Academies’ Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.

This book was recommended by some people. How?
Through the idea of a library catalog at Library Thing, a site which let us store, tag and share book references online. The idea is amazing. So this guy, cogdog (Director of Member & Technology Resources at the New Media Consortium, Alan Levine) worked up his own catalog of references for learning and new & social media: see cogdog’s library catalog here. He used a special set of tags to classify his references: for instance, he defined a group, the NMC Reading Group. Then he asked people to store references using a special set of tags that were unique to the group. This means that any group member can instantly know the members’ recommendation on any subject. .

At a tutorial I gave last september, I asked my participants to tag  their best resources through del.icio.us with a special tag (only one) I had prepared: HETStools (HETS being the sponsoring organization for the tutorial). In less than ten minutes we had a list (specific to us) of some 30 references online, that could be queried by anyone. Amazing, isn’t it? This shows in a way the power of the so-called social construction of knowledge.

About Antonio Vantaggiato

Professor, web2.0 enthusiast, and didactic chef.
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