I came across a very unique and fun web 2.0 tool last week while using my previous web 2.0 tool kindersite.com. I’m starting to love web 2.0 tools because there are hundreds of them out there. What’s neat is that within one web 2.0 tool, you can find another tool and another tool within that one. It’s a community of tools. The recent one I came across is called Tag Galaxy (http://taggalaxy.de/). This is such a fun site. It’s tied into Flickr. At Tag Galaxy, you can find thousands and thousands of pictures, all of which have been uploaded on Flickr. When you enter the site, you’re asked to enter a tag. The tag can be anything you want from a country to a fruit. You can even get more specific and type in a specific country or fruit such as Egypt or apple. When you click go, Tag Galaxy will search Flickr for any photos pertaining to the tag you entered. “You are whisked away to what looks to be a star, surrounded by “planets” that represent complementary tags” (Aune, 2008, para. 2). Before seeing any pictures, it will break your tag down to more specific categories. Take for example the word apple. After clicking go, you will be asked what type of apple you are looking for such as red, green, tree, etc. When you make your choice, this sphere shape is then covered in thousands of pictures. You can see a small image of each one and click on the one you like and it will become enlarged. You can even click on the enlarged picture to see more information and clicking again will take you to where it is posted on Flickr where you can see comments or if you’d like to use it, ask for permission. It’s a phenomenal site and a very interesting way of presenting pictures. Wood’s states, “Tag Galaxy is a very good flash application that uses Papervision3D with beautiful transition effects to explore Flickr photos via virtual planetary systems” (para. 1).
The best thing about this site is that anyone can use it. It can be of use to educators of all grade levels. It’s also free. Teachers can do lessons and search thousands of images pertaining to their lessons. They can also have students find images pertaining to their assignments. It’s nice to have a site that provides a wide variety of images that students can see without having to search through Google images and finding images that don’t even pertain to what they were searching for. With Tag Galaxy, it sorts through the images and finds you exactly what you’re looking for. If you want students to explore a specific category, Tag Galaxy allows them to do that while focusing on all areas addressing the tag name you have selected. I highly recommend teachers to at least check it out.
Below is a brief video that gives a glimpse of this site.
References:
Aune, S. P. (2008). Flickr visualization tag galaxy: Out of this world! Mashable The Social Media Guide. Retrieved May 19, 2010, from http://mashable.com/2008/05/25/tag-galaxy
Very interesting tool. I like it a lot. Specifically the ability for anyone to use it. The visual activeness of it makes it very enticing to use. Nice tool.
ReplyDeleteInteresting tool that you have come across. Using a user friendly tool is always a plus in the classroom. Efficiency in the classroom provides students with an instant connection to information that is an integral part of their learning process. Having the ability to narrow down search results for students and the images that they are searching for will work towards the end product in a timely manner. Keep me posted Shahenaz.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the post.