Hello IDC students!
Thank you all for posting such interesting and colorful introductions. We are particularly impressed with your use of multimedia. Keep up the creativity!
However, we do need to clarify the difference between categories and tags and reiterate their importance. A category is the larger, broader level of distinguishing a post – and most importantly it determines where on the site this post can be found. For instance, on a food blog a recipe for chocolate brownies would be categorized as “dessert” or “baking.” Adding this categories groups the brownie recipe with other recipes that would you bake and serve for dessert, and often filter these into a designated area of the website. But once there are many recipes under those categories, it is best to further define and separate these post with tags which are more specific, such as “chocolate,” “walnuts,” etc. Read more about this distinction here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories-vs-tags/
For the purpose of our blog, only the administrators – your professors and ITFs – will be making categories. These categories will almost always be the name of your section. If you do not use the correct category (your section), then the professor will not be able to find your post on the site and you will not get credit for your work.
As you can see, with over 60 students and 6 administrators posting to this site, and over 20 of you in each section, we need another level of organization. You should always use the tag that identifies which assignment you are completing. So far, we have “introductions” and “Brooklyn Museum.” We will soon add the last name of the author you are reading and responding to – such as “Kafka.” These tags will be the same for everyone doing that assignment, and will be used in addition to the category of your section. But – as a bonus – you can add your own tags! For example, if you found a work of art you loved at the museum, add the tag that best identifies the work – like “Monet” or “Goya” and “painting” or “sculpture”- and see if other students are writing about the same topics.
Don’t worry if you have made an error at this point. We are not trying to punish or embarrass you! What is important here is that you understand the role of information architecture when building a website, and how to organize and control these elements to ensure the usability of these sites. Yes, that is a lot of jargon, but it is the kind of vocabulary we want you to learn through using these tools! If you don’t know what these terms mean, and have questions about how to categorize and tag, ask your ITFs!!!
We are happy to help!
