Tagging! Help us come up with a list of tags for this forum

[Dar]

We have tags! Well, we will have tags... right now we have sort of rudimentary tags that aren't all that useful, so we need a list of tags to add that would help you as members find things in this forum. I'm not sure if members can tag yet or if we're just previewing this feature as mods, but it's coming...

Right now we'll only be able to tag things (threads, product reviews, wikis, etc) with preset tags, so it's important that we add the tags we want. The wiki is here, if you want to read more about it.

So, brainstorm a bit! Imagine you're looking for information in the forum and could just go to a tag and find everything on that subject - what tags would you want? They'll be under the category Education, and the current subcategories are things like Educational Books, Manipulatives, Educational Curriculums ... which don't seem all that useful to be, really, but I could be wrong.

Off the top of my head, I was thinking, under the education heading, we could have:
Preschool
Elementary
Middle School
High School
Charlotte Mason
Math
Language Arts
Science
Social Studies
Homeschool Groups
Socialization
State Laws


What do you think? Useful, not useful? WHat others would you add?

Thanks!

[lach]

Why Charlot Mason, and notother homeschooling philosophies? Classical, Waldorf, Montessori, Enki, online charter.  Unschooling has its own subforum, but radical unschooling might be a tag.

Secular, Catholic, and whatever the polite term for fundamentalist protestant would be useful, especially if you can filter by multiple tags.  It seems like people search for secular science curricula pretty often, for example.

[Dar]

Charlotte Mason was the only one I could think of , except Montessori and Waldorf, but they have their own subforums over in Learning at School so I wasn't sure how that would work. We've talked over the years about moving those subforums or somehow indicating that they're open to metadiscussion of the theories that includes homeschoolers too, but we never went much further with that basically because no one was complaining, and if it ain't broke... but we wouldn't want to tag every post there. I'll check with Cynthia and Adina on that, I guess.

I'll add the others, though... and I'm not sure what the proper tag would be for conservative Protestant styles... is there anyone from that group who can help? I've heard it just referred to as Christian, but Catholics are Christian too... I don't know.

[umsami]

What about something like complete curriculum/a?

I'd also consider Pre-K vs. Preschool as well as Kindergarten.  Maybe also phonics/reading?

Also something for computer games, educational games, and maybe virtual schools?

[Dar]

There is a section already called curriculum, and then under that there are two complete curriculums (Oak Meadow and one other... I don't know why those are preset). I think there's also a place for educational games... no, there's not. There are Educational Toys, Puzzles and DVDs categories, so we should add games. Maybe Educational Games and Educational Websites? And yes, definitely virtual schools, maybe with the different philosophies? And K12 as a subcategory, maybe, because that seems to be discussed a lot?

As far as age ranges, I was trying to divide things into categories that would cover a few years at least... so I thought preschool was anything before kindergarten and elementary was kindergarten through 5th or 6th grade... is PreK a better term for some reason? I admit to being a bit out of the loop as far as that age group...

I thought Language Arts sort of included Reading and Phonics... or maybe those could be subcategories of Language Arts?

[Tjej]

considering homeschooling  is a topic that comes up a lot.  Might be a useful tag.

Tjej

[moominmamma]

Just a pitch for "homeschooling legalities" rather than "state laws," since many of us don't live in the USA.

Miranda

[lach]

Hmm, I think I'd rather Waldorf and Montessori stay under learning at school.  I think the home experience and the school experience are very different.  Maybe the tags could be Waldorf-at-home and Montessori-at-home?

[sapphire_chan]

Not sure how to make these work with one word tags, but tags about deciding to homeschool and talking about homeschooling with family/friends.

[Yaliina]

Maybe add writing as a subcategory under LA? 

In regards to terms, I'd agree that PreK might be a better term than Preschool, since I don't really think of my son as a Preschooler as much as a Pre-Kindergartener (as he'll never attend "school").  But maybe I'm wrong- I guess if I didn't find it under PreK I would then try Preschool.
 

I would also agree that things like Montessori and Waldorf should probably exist under two headings ('at school' and 'at home'), but I wouldn't think to specify when searching, I don't think. 

Do tags have to be kept to one word?  If so, maybe just "considering" or "discussing" or even "thinking" under the category of HS might work for those topics?

What about Homeschooling Resources, Resource Materials, etc.?  Books, Videos, DVDs, Computer... resources would definitely be useful (I saw this post as I was looking for these things, lol).

I'm glad stuff is getting organized.  The new site is beautiful, if a bit slow.  :)