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A Tag Cloud Interface for Community
Here's a little user interface enhancement that I have created for the tag-based remix learning site.
Sections: Education Emerging Practice
Topics: LearningRemix tagging
So, we've launched the remix learning site. The idea here is that students in a class about databases and information contribute by making blog posts and bookmarking web pages. Students tag each blog post and bookmark based on the class conversation topics they feel they contribute to. Posts with multiple tags contribute to multiple conversations.
The remix learning site gathers student contributions several times a day and archives them in a movable type blog. The interface allows people to view contributions grouped by tag. That's great, but the question is how to present these topics to people in a way that they can view: the most recent, the most talked about, the whole universe.
To do that, I have come up with this tag cloud:
The key element in the default view is that items are sorted in reverse order by recency. Frequency is indicated by size of the tag in the cloud. Visitors also have the option of sorting alphabetically and by pure frequency.
Bud posted this on September 13, 2005
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Comments
On your blog post, what is the difference between Sections, and Topics.
Now the remix learning site is a marvelous piece of newsmastering.
It's easy enough to re-syndicate content, but how did you re-syndicate the content so you can browse by category/topic..how are the topics transported as well.
Posted by: John Tropea at September 14, 2005 03:08 AM
Hi John:
The difference between sections and topics on this site is just that sections appear in the main nav and are more permanent. Perhaps, they should all be together.
On the remix site, getting the topics in involves harvesting the dc:subject or category elements from the feeds. This idea is sort of a combination of technorati tagging on top of del.icio.us tagging. You tag both your own stuff and other people's stuff.
There is a combination of behavioral and technical issues going on here. For instance, the newsmastering is good, but how do you make people truly aware of the space? I think you need some sort of plug-in to the authoring environment.
BTW, would more posts on this topic be of interest? Would you like some of the technical details?
Posted by: Bud Gibson at September 14, 2005 07:53 AM
