Group items tagged

It reminded me of the the review tools in Microsoft Word which I've used a few times with students - someone sends me a Word document and I add comments and suggested edits. The review tools can track changes I make as well as highlighting sections and adding notes in the margin. I can then send the annotated Word document back to the author and a conversation grows around the original document and our comments. When I first started using this feature of Word, I thought it would be great if you could do that with web pages. Imagine being able to get a class of students to collaborate on a web page: to highlighting sections, share their understanding, ask questions and add extra information. With diigo, that's exactly what you could do.Add to that online social bookmarking (which can be linked to other bookmarking services such as del.icio.us), the ability to highlight any text on a page and search for it on a range of search services using a pop-up menu, to blog about a page and link non-diigo users to your annotations on that page (this blog posted was created using the diigo Blog this tool) and a host of other features ...and you have a stunningly valuable educational tool.

I have also found Diigo to be quite an exciting tool and this year my year group is in a better position to use it. I structured it into an independent activity during a literacy hour with my Year 5 children. Using Diigo I annotated a set of written instructions with comprehension style questions and the children answered them in their jotters. The children were accessing the site using a class set of laptops. I wanted them to respond someway online but took a simpler step to begin with to test the concept. It worked very well and the children were well motivated and on task - they managed well with the new tool and took it in their stride.

3. Diigo has shown a committment to listening to its users. Well at least the educational users, and they have been making small changes almost daily since Lisa Parisi held the elluminate session this past Sunday. Maggie Tsai and Wade Ren have been in and out of multiple conversations on Diigo and posting on edubloggers pages (Look up) to actively understand our needs and look to make changed in Diigo to fit the educational model… You can be offended by the “hate” comment Wade made, but this is his company and he wants to make change to satisify folks… I really like delicious since I was introduced to it a year ago. Easy linking, I can tag from a tool bar with comments I can build a passive network… But Delicious is not listening to folks or making changes even though they “introduced” their version 2 about a year ago, and it has not appeared. Even the tech bloggers are taking delicious to task for this. The responsiveness that Wade and Maggie have shown so far is really impressive in my opinion. Just wanted to share my thoughts on why I am continuing to investigate and use Diigo. I know that you feel a bit targeted for “not drinking the coolaid” but I think what you are getting hit hard on is if you don’t like the service you do not have to use it. Or with the participation Wade and Maggie are showing get involved and see if it can become what you would like to see… Just my thoughts, Scott

# Scott Weidigon 02 Apr 2008 at 10:27 pm Jim, I went to post this on Diigo and then hit my back space and went to a different page and lost everything boo… but I thought that I would post here instead. I am becoming more enamored over time with Diigo. At first I didn’t get the hoopla… I don’t “do” facebooks and myspaces etc. and I have enough of a hard time keeping up with twitter (don’t know how coolcatteacher and Dembo follow 1000+ folks… ) so I didn’t think much of the social side. But it could host links and re-post them to delicious so not too bad… here is what is changing my mind. 1. Bookmarking… on one hand it is the same as delicious tags yadda yadda… but I can now tag a s ite, send it to friends in the diigo network and outside of it, forward it to a specific topic group and throw it into a specifically designed list at the same time! That is efficient in my mind. the Twit thing is neat too so I don’t have to tinyurl it and post to twitter… and I can even keep my delicious account updated through Diigo so I don’t have to do double work… (and when i imported it brough my delicious notes that was a nice touch)

2. Annotation/stikites/highlighting. We all research and move information into different places, google notebook, MS OneNote, Zoho Notobook… but those pieces of information are then only our notes and ideas… Diigo’s highlighint and annotation allows you to make any page a conversational document. That is powerful. I just played with it for the first time today and was blown away with ease at which you could do this. those notes can then be seen by any diigo user. The collaborative possibilities are astounding. if you have not tried this or seen it go to http://lisaslingo.blogspot.com and scroll down to the Best Day Ever post. If you have your Diigo sidebar open you will see two notes, and the Highlighing that Steve Kimmel did. Also, I don’t know if it is showing up yet I tagged a sticky note next to the first picture there… my comments appear in the side bar, but I see the note markup and I am thinking others will to eventually, but am not sure. Think of all the times your teachers ahve been trying to teach textmarking but can’t in the Textbooks… now we can do this to the web.

It reminded me of the the review tools in Microsoft Word which I've used a few times with students - someone sends me a Word document and I add comments and suggested edits. The review tools can track changes I make as well as highlighting sections and adding notes in the margin. I can then send the annotated Word document back to the author and a conversation grows around the original document and our comments. When I first started using this feature of Word, I thought it would be great if you could do that with web pages. Imagine being able to get a class of students to collaborate on a web page: to highlighting sections, share their understanding, ask questions and add extra information. With diigo, that's exactly what you could do.Add to that online social bookmarking (which can be linked to other bookmarking services such as del.icio.us), the ability to highlight any text on a page and search for it on a range of search services using a pop-up menu, to blog about a page and link non-diigo users to your annotations on that page (this blog posted was created using the diigo Blog this tool) and a host of other features ...and you have a stunningly valuable educational tool.

NextGen Teachers Skypecast with fellow bloggers and Web 2.0 enthusiasts Doug Belshaw (host), Aaron Smith, Kristian Still, Ollie Bray, Leon Cych and Paul Harrington

summary of our conversation about how we as teachers are using new technologies to collaborate with each other and our students to enhance teaching and learning in the 21st century classroom.

Part 1: What collaborative tools are we using? wikis blogging and Flashmeeting learning with your students working from home via a wiki pooling expertise from practitioners unlocking web 2.0 tools using diigo

If you haven’t heard of Diigo yet, it’s high time you took a look and made use of what they have to offer. They define themselves as a powerful research tool and a knowledge-sharing community. I believe their promise is backed up by the features they offer: bookmarking, annotations, clippings and the possibility to share everything you come across with others.

Diigo is not your average social network. Given its strong focus on effective research, most users are there to keep tracks of the domains they’re keen on. Unless you are able to create tons exquisite content on quite a few hot tags of Diigo, just bookmarking your own articles won’t get you very far.

So what other ways are there to use Diigo as a traffic generator?