The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.
Following the #LondonRiots or #UKRiots hashtag on twitter has made me think again about how to explore the important and relatively new concepts (in classrooms anyway) of tag, metadata, metalanguage and folksonomy. It is has also made me reflect about inclusivity and being marginalised, the importance of nurturing our civil society, including the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Politics matters. So do texts. I have always felt that English teachers have a special role in our culture and see new opportunities for engaging our students with (and analysing) social media.
English teaching involves students in becoming increasingly aware of the codes and conventions of texts but more importantly, what impact the skilful employment of these, by the composer, may have on the responder. All artful representation requires clever manipulation of the literary (and other) devices and traditions available, if meaning is to be made. It is important that English teachers use and analyse new tools with their classes. Often, these will be useful in developing cultural literacies of a more traditional hue. ‘Geeks’ have been blogging for years about these concepts/tools (folksonomies, tagging and the importance of metadata) but now, with more widespread access to the internet in classrooms, learning professionals have an opportunity to make lessons more relevant for our current generation of students.
Yes, I am trying to ‘position’ you! 😉
The context for these particular musings are that @MBWestergaard, a new colleague at my exchange school in Viborg, wants to open the academic year for her senior English class by exploring current events in England. The class has an excursion to London later in the year and a range of texts to study. Marianne is new to twitter but could instantly see the potential of following events via the micro-blogging platform and where that could lead her students. We chatted about # hashtags and looked at the etymology and history of their use online as well as the commentary/content at the hashtags.
It was fun!
We also discussed the following.
How the hashtag originated on twitter and @chrismessina ‘s continuing online discussions at his tweet stream about this ‘typographic convention intended to embellish your message w/ context‘.
Folksonomy. Like you (I guess), I am a fanboy of Daniel H Pink, who wrote, in the New York Times in 2005, about tagging and folksonomies as newly emerging and very democratic tools for ‘classifying mountains of digital material’ that is replacing Dewey:
A folksonomy begins with tagging. On the Web site Flickr, for example, users post their photos and label them with descriptive words.
Flickr was new then and now it is so widely used by ‘The Establishment’ (as is twitter and Facebook and social media generally) to share and it is a staple of not just our online worlds but our international culture. For example, The London Metropolitan Police used the service in their attempt to identify rioters. Interestingly enough, the #LondonRiots hashtag reveals a fascinating mix of establishment, private and the whole political spectrum of opinion. Mainstream media companies and politicians intermingle with ‘the great unwashed’ when one reads this hashtag tweetstream.
What does this mean for those analysing the event who are all so participating in real time? Rich sources for future historians indeed (as is the now archived online campaign that led to the election of Barrack Obama).
This article about hashtags, from The New Yorker last year, is excellent and insightful. And who could not agree with the quip:
Amazing how rich and complex 140 characters with a few symbols thrown in can be.
How many teachers are exploring the myriad implications of this self-organising system of classification in classrooms today? Are teachers of philosophy exploring ontology in new ways? Are they discussing ontology and the semantic web?
How many teachers are actually having students tag blog posts or exploring hashtags?
I suspect the honest answer is unbelievably few. I would like to be humbled by data that says this is an incorrect assumption, so please post a comment or send me some links or contacts that enlighten.
Our civil society thrives when the community is powerfully literate and we need to assist young people to become involved, culturally aware citizens. Inclusivity and allowing all voices to be heard seems practically and symbolically to be represented on twitter and in self-organising systems like the folksonomy. What do you think?
I am very keen to share with anyone exploring folksonomy, tagging and particularly hashtags with students in any context.
cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by ocean.flynn
Related Post: Twitter and Edmodo in Denmark
UPDATE: research into the 2.5 million riot related tweets
Clint Lalonde
You positioned me well 🙂 and make a compelling argument. Understanding hashtags and folksonomies are digital literacy skills that, as you so rightly point out, help us understand, organize and navigate information.
Just as important in my mind is the fact that the proper use of metadata and hashtags ensures that the messages we create are found and heard and don’t just disappear into the noise. Proper metadata ensures our messages can be found by the people who are looking for them, which is also increasingly important for students if they want their voices heard on issues that affect them. The correct use of something like a hashtag could be the difference between a students voice being heard or not.
Rebecca
Dear Darcy,
This post is really inspiring. I am studying to teach English after a career in publishing and the creative industries. I was wondering, is there time to teach outside the scope of the curriculum? And how do you communicate the deeper meanings to children of varying abilities?
From a very green not-a-teacher-yet.
Rebecca.
Darcy Moore
Hello Rebecca,
I appreciate your kind words. Thank you!
Your question is a good one. If we look at the lessons that could flow from the topics explored at this post, from the perspective of a teacher of English, in NSW, using the current syllabi, it would be very easy to make formal and appropriate links to the outcomes and cross-curricula content. Generally, in my experience, it is possible in such well-written syllabi, to legitimise new ideas, especially about technology, textual features and ‘communication’. For example, a copy and paste from the syllabus mentions:
Outcome 3 (stage 4) responds to and composes texts in different technologies
Outcome 3 (stage 5) selects, uses, describes and explains how different technologies affect and shape meaning
Outcome 5 (Prelim) A student describes the ways different technologies and media of production affect the language and structure of particular texts.
etc.. (and of course ‘metalanguage’ is important in our Quality Teaching’ docs too).
I read the equivalent Danish docks and could find links quite easily.
Your thoughts?
@Darcy1968
Kelli
Thank you for this post Darcy – I just recently rediscovered the term ‘folksonomy’. I think it’s a lovely term, as well as being useful…also, a big hello to Viborg, and to Maz! (Darcy you might have to explain how names get Australianised here 😉 )
Can I offer a particularly English teacher-y idea? First, a question: would you say that taxonomies are imposed from above while folksonomies evolve from the community?
So, my idea: that GENRES only come to be as ‘text categories’ because we conceptually use really, really established metadata as ‘tags’ in literary studies. A text could get tagged with #book #film #fiction #print_text #first_person #narrative #exposition #multimodal etc. and it is in this way that English teachers can deal with the complexity of categorizing texts without being limited to binaries and genre silos. More specifically, I first had the thought this way: that ‘genres’ are just ‘memes’ that stick around. Like memes, all genres start somewhere, with someone, and then become popular. I mean – 140 character blog posts? Who could predict that would catch on? But, as people increasingly found they liked and valued this mode of expression that was #online #personal_writing in #short_form to a #public_audience , and BOOM! the genre of “microblogging” is born. I also thought this was a nice way to explain why Shakespeare is still so awesome – his work is so meme-ish! Just like Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’, he caught on…only, we liked his snappy quotes and language play so much, we let him stick around 😉
To return to taxonomies/folksonomies…do you think we need both? I think they feed off each other, so am happy for institutions to make their taxonomies, as long as I can speak back to them, and they don’t try to replace or denigrate folksonomies. Make sense?
Rebecca
Dear Darcy,
Thank you kindly for your reply and for taking the time to link this post to potential real life experiences. I can conclude that English has changed a lot since I was at school and I love how reflexive it seems to have become. You have completely inspired me. I recently changed my first specialism from art to English and now I know I have made the right choice. Likewise Kelli’s post has made me feel I am in good postmodern company when I finally graduate.
Thank you. Ready to crack on with my Australian Literature essay this week with fresh enthusiasm!
Rebecca.
Kelli
There is no greater compliment, I think, than being called ‘good postmodern company’ – thank you Rebecca, made my day 🙂
English is just Art in disguise as language anyways. Hence, Art people are always a very welcome conversion to the English flock, imo!