Chris Betcher

One of the unavoidable buzzwords of Web 2.0 is the term “tag”. Everywhere you look online you come across the term, and everything from photos to news articles to blogposts are getting “tagged”. But what exactly are “tags” and why are they such a big deal these days? To understand the importance of tagging, first let’s consider the problem that tagging sets out to solve. There was a time when everything in our lives existed only in the physical world. Books sat on shelves. Photos were in photo albums. Music was stored on CDs. Life was simple. If you wanted to find that photo of your sister-in-law Wendy wearing a silly hat at last year’s family Christmas party you simply went to the family photo album and flicked through the pages till you found it. The photo was a real physical object that existed in one real physical location. Storing a photo in a family photo album seems pretty obvious, but the problem is that this method of storing, finding and accessing an object does not scale...

I was in New Zealand recently for a conference and thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Land of the Long White Cloud. I got to meet other passionate educators, talk geeky edtech stuff and just generally hang out with them for a couple of days.  As part of the fun of hanging out with fellow geeks, I made a short video from my Nokia N95 using the live streaming ability of Qik.  The live stream was just a bit of fun, and went for a total of 5 minutes and 15 seconds.  Apart from the brief live stream, I also checked my email twice using the mobile Gmail client, and also checked my location on a Google Map while wandering through the streets of Napier. While in Napier, a text message arrived from my carrier, 3 Mobile , saying that my account balance for the month has just reached $535.  What??!!  I mean, I know that mobile roaming can be expensive, but surely this had to be some sort of mistake!  I switched my phone off and left it off until I returned to Australia. When I arrived back home ...

My daughter Kate loves to sing. She discovered this ability a few years ago when she came home from school and announced that she wanted to try out for a solo part in a local performing arts concert. Although we always thought she had a nice voice that could carry a tune, we had totally missed the fact that she was actually quite talented vocally and so her intention to sing solo at this concert was a bit of a surprise. Long story short, she has discovered her voice and is working hard at developing it further. She's done workshops and music camps and is now working with a singing coach. She really does love to sing. She was recently selected to be part of the Talent Advancement Program (TAP), a program for kids with musical talent aged 13 to 18. For the 23 kids selected to be part of TAP, it's a pretty special group to be take part of. They get to learn and grow by actually performing in front of people. Tomorrow, they are all performing at the Sydney Royal Easter Sh...

Of all the tools that are shaping our new information landscape, perhaps none is more controversial than Wikipedia . As an encyclopedia that can be written and edited by anyone, it certainly attracts its fair share of skepticism. There are even some educators who refuse to allow their students to use Wikipedia as a research source, claiming that there is no verifiable level of authority in its articles and that it is far too easy for it to contain information that is inaccurate, misleading or just plain wrong. They argue that students should not trust an encyclopedia written by just anyone. Others take a more positive view, believing that the overall level of quality in Wikipedia is as good, and possibly better, than commercially available encyclopedia products created by qualified professionals. Both viewpoints are, to some extent, valid. It’s true that Wikipedia has the potential to be full of errors, silly facts and misinformation, and that anyone, even an anonymous user, can edit ...