Changes

Metadata adds an additional level of sophistication to the tagging model.  Rather than thinking of this as data about data, consider it a means of tagging tags. Metadata on the laptops will be an extension of the basic tagging model where the tag itself consists of a key:value pair.  Or, you could simply consider a tag to be a metadata pair with a null key. Whichever way you look at it, this categorization of tags has powerful implications when it comes to organizing and categorizing data.

Metadata adds an additional level of sophistication to the tagging model.  Rather than thinking of this as data about data, consider it a means of tagging tags. Metadata on the laptops will be an extension of the basic tagging model where the tag itself consists of a key:value pair.  Or, you could simply consider a tag to be a metadata pair with a null key. Whichever way you look at it, this categorization of tags has powerful implications when it comes to organizing and categorizing data.

The Journal itself assigns a variety of useful metadata tags to entries as they appear.  These include the time of the entry, it's sharing scope, who participated in the activity, it size, and more.  The Journal will also keep track of other useful metadata, such as the number of times a child views a particular entry, the number of revisions an entry has gone through, etc.  Likewise, activities will deal primarily with metadata rather than simple tags.  This allows activities to define specific parameters, or keys, that make sense for the Objects they produce, and then assign values to those dynamically.  In a music composition activity, for instance, potential keys might be beats per minute, the key the composition is written in, the length of the track, and the composer, among others.  See the sorting section to fully understand the usefulness of this metadata within the Journal.

The Journal itself assigns a variety of useful metadata tags to entries as they appear.  These include the time of the entry, it's sharing scope, who participated in the activity, its size, and more.  The Journal will also keep track of other useful metadata, such as the number of times a child views a particular entry, the number of revisions an entry has gone through, etc.  Likewise, activities will deal primarily with metadata rather than simple tags.  This allows activities to define specific parameters, or keys, that make sense for the Objects they produce, and then assign values to those dynamically.  In a music composition activity, for instance, potential keys might be beats per minute, the key the composition is written in, the length of the track, and the composer, among others.  See the sorting section to fully understand the usefulness of this metadata within the Journal.

Of course, since tags and metadata both follow a very basic format, children can assign their own metadata associations with Journal entries once they have enough experience simply by typing key:value pairs into the description field.

Of course, since tags and metadata both follow a very basic format, children can assign their own metadata associations with Journal entries once they have enough experience simply by typing key:value pairs into the description field.