Diving Deeper into Diigo

So you see! There's no end to the things you might know, depending on how far beyond Zebra you go! --Dr. Seuss

I just tucked my daughter in for nap time with some warm milk and a Dr. Seuss. His wild and wacky way with words always gets me inspired (as you might have already guessed from the title of my blog).

Today, I started experimenting with Diigo's ability to highlight, sticky-note, comment and share annotated links. I quickly discovered that one can do a lot more with the Diigo toolbar than the Diigolet button I had previously added to my toolbar. So, I downloaded a very quick plug-in for Firefox and I was off and running.


Trying out Features

First, I experimented with the Highlight and Sticky Note feature to post some reminders to myself on a blog post I found about using Evernote. Then, I discovered that I can use Diigo to create a special URL to share that blog post along with my highlights and sticky notes: Here it is!

The Diigo Toolbar also has a sidebar feature that allows you to create a general comment on a website that will appear in your Diigo library or in a Diigo group. The Diigo toolbar also has a screen capture tool that will save just clips of a website to your Diigo library. Overall, the Diigo toolbar has a lot to offer!

The more I experiment with Diigo the more I think about how it is a tool that can support my various roles:

• As a graduate student to organize and collaborate on research
• As a teacher to share information with my students (especially when I want to draw attention to a particular aspect of a website) and also between students on shared projects
  
• For personal interest (eg. to save my comments on recipes, etc.)

A Closer Look at Classroom Use

Berger and Trexler (2010) prefer Diigo in the classroom to other social bookmarking services as it "has distinctive features that support active learning" because "it allow the students to mark up Web pages as they would a paperback book--with sticky notes, highlights, and comments--and then share those notes with others" (p. 57). Diigo's ability to allow students to engage their reading with opinions, comments and questions is key.

When the idea of sharing and commenting on each other's research using Diigo was put to the test in an English classroom, teacher-librarian Deborah Gottsleben-Delaney (2010) noted that "[i]t really didn't matter if one student found an excellent website. The conversation that surrounded that source became a lesson in itself" (pg. 14). I could imagine this would be particularly useful when critiquing the validity of websites, etc.

I'm excited to put social bookmarking, as well as highlighting/commenting to more use both as a learner and as a teacher!

References

Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Gottsleben-Delaney, D.. (2010, December). I Go, You Go: Why You Should Use Diigo. School Librarian's Workshop: New Year Issue, 31(3), 14. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 2237906941).

Have a playdate with your bookmarks!

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. --Thomas Jefferson

We've been bookmarking sites for a long time with our browsers, and now we are using services like Diigo to do it so we can access the bookmarks at any computer. But how do I make bookmarking social? What does this mean, anyways?

Berger and Trexler (2010) define social bookmarking as "the ability to share what you find with others and see what they have "tagged" perceiving additional uses" (p. 53). This video from the Common Craft Show explains social bookmarking beautifully (even though it happens to use the tool Delicious rather than Diigo):

Up until now, I have been bookmarking, and I have been tagging, but I have not looked at the social aspect of it. In Diigo, you can choose to follow certain people, and thus, their bookmarks and tags. I did a Diigo search for friends with my Google account and it turns out that two people I know use Diigo, so I sent invitations. (Suddenly, I am having a flashback to trying to find contacts on Goodreads. In real life, I actually do have friends...honestly.)

Another way to utilize the social aspect of bookmarking at Diigo is to use the Group feature. This post on Learn it in 5 provides a great overview of how to use Diigo Groups. I have applied to a popular group called "Diigo in Education" to see what that will yield.

I can definitely see the benefits of setting up groups for classes, and in this way I could easily share numerous relevant websites (with comments and sticky notes) for research or projects. A school could set up a group to share valuable educational websites with teachers and teachers could then share comments about them. Oh, the Pro-D possibilities! My head is spinning.

References

Barnes, M. (n.d.). Diigo Groups. Learn it in 5: how-to videos for the technology classroom. Retrieved from http://learnitin5.com/Diigo-Groups

Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Lefever, L. (2009, March 18). Social bookmarking in plain English, for the rest of us [Video file]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/HeBmvDpVbWc