Group items tagged

Diigo is fantastic social bookmarking and proto-blogging tool, marrying the best of del.icio.us, the leading bookmarking site, and Google Notebook, a recently upgraded and highly flexible tool for interacting with and reviewing your websurfing experience. I didn't spend much time with Google Notebook once I discovered it by way of comparing del.icio.us with Google Bookmarks, but I played with it enough to notice a lot of excellent features that del.icio.us did not have, including the ability to automatically associate bookmarks with a current project, flexible blog-like layout for groups of bookmarks, and collaboration features. As I moved bookmarks into Google Notebook, I started to realize I would be missing out on some advantages of del.icio.us, such as strong interconnectivity through tagging and an exceedingly simple and crisp interface. Enter Diigo, which retains del.icio.us's advantages while sprucing it up with notetaking, tagging flexibility, and collaborative features that rival Google Notebook and then some. I compare these three approaches to bookmarking on four fronts: tagging, blogging, collaboration, and "other stuff".

Tagging: When I'm surfing, I almost never want to slow down to tag or detail the links I'm saving. I'm either just browsing, and I just want the page to be saved in some repository of "cool" somewhere I might be able to check it out later, OR I want to save the page and others to come back to for some project I'm working on. Although its actual tagging features (labelling) are limited, Google Reader was cool because it would automatically save links to the notebook I was currently working on, which seemed easier than having to tag the page every time I save for del.icio.us. Diigo isn't quite this easy, but it does provide the option of setting default tags so I can cruise through surfing without pause. It also allows you to change tags for multiple bookmarks at once, a feature that has been delayed in del.icio.us during the extended wait for version 2.0. Winner: Diigo

Blogging: Sometimes, I don't want to put a whole lot of thought into consolidating my links into one coherent group. In this regard, all three services provide suitable options for tossing together semi-coherent groups of links on independent webpages for others to see. Google Reader does a good job of making scraps from around the internet look palatable; see this example about ultralight backpacking gear, but it does not offer the same level of interconnectivity that del.icio.us or Diigo provide. A similar example from del.icio.us shows it's limitations: the links cannot be groups under one note or be put into any order other than alphabetical or chronological, and pictures and other non-bookmark material cannot be added. Diigo does not have any of these limitations: its lists can be ordered as you please and divided into sections, and they are built independently of the tags, so you can draw bookmarks from anywhere into the page, as you can see in this example. The option that makes Diigo stand out is its ability to transcend the status of "proto-blog" by easily exporting links to the blog of the user's choice. By simply selecting links and clicking "Send to Blog >>", a skeletal blog entry is started in Diigo which can be fleshed out and published on the spot. Winner: Diigo

   4. Notebook would be a great way to use web based text for comprehension tasks. I have thought that if a Diigo account was used alongside the work in Google Notebook it could be very powerful. Signpost and ask questions using the Diigo interface (perhaps a single class login) and then children respond using notebook. So for example in a poem you might ask some questions for each stanza. (If you have a Diigo account take a look at Charles Causley's "My Mother Saw a Dancing Bear" where I have added some examples.) The children then respond in a Poetry notebook or something equivalent.    5. Independent reading tasks or guided reading of online texts can be supported using Diigo sticky notes and the children's responses formed in notebook.

I have only used 1 product in this genre: Google Notebook. In my experience it integrates tightly with Firefox, has a right click contextual menu option, ability to publicize or privatize multiple notebooks, etc.

I use Google Notebook, which is essentially the same thing. It has really helped me and changed the way I browse.

Sometimes bookmarking something you want to reference later doesn't quite do the trick since the page might change or you just can't remember what it was you found so interesting.

titles of notebooks could name specific tasks or children, to allow them to add the content in the correct place and for us to properly monitor and respond to what is happening. Imagine then a series of guided reading sessions during a week of literacy work, where children add the answers to Diigo set questions on a specific text - each child opens the notebook via the FF extension and navigates to the correct notebook (either by name or by task) adding their responses which are now labelled due to there location. Complete Notebooks could be archived into Google Docs so the list does not get too crowded over time.

In addition I have also signed up for a class Diigo account so that we can share annotations and signpost online text to children.

Why I am switching to Diigo from Google notebooks The context:  Over the years bookmarking tools have evolved with ever increasing ease-of-use and power.  Yet many times the migration pathway to new technology presents a formidable barrier to adoption, despite the desire for greater functionality. In my case, I have accumulated an archive of hundreds of bookmarks.  Most of these have been organized in the traditional way (folders, sub-folders) and reside primarily in my browser.  Occasionally, I need to dip in and find a bookmark, but flipping through folders and sub-folders or trying to remember and appropriate search term is terribly inefficient. First, Google Notebooks came to my rescue:  Google Notebooks provided a more efficient means of organizing and tracking bookmarks thematically, despite its inability to upload and convert my existing bookmarks, the functionality was compelling.  I made the switch.  Their excellent search engine provides rapid results plus as an added bonus it is incredibly easy to highlight relevant text from within websites.  Enter Diigo:  So why switch?  Features, features and more features.  Diigo is as easy to use as Google Notebooks with many more features.   These are the features that attract me most. 1.  Bookmarking and highlighting multiple blocks of text. 2.  Easy-to-use sticky notes and tagging form for rapid bookmarking. 3.  A powerful tag filter for rapid searching at all grain sizes. 4.  A method within Diigo to publish to my blog in Edublogs.  (I’m doing that now!) As a classroom teacher , I am intrigued by: 1.  The possibility of creating a shared resource with other like-minded teachers. 2.  Marking up webpages and sharing sticky notes with my students. 3.  The possibility that student’s themselves can mark-up nd share their thoughts with others students.

About publishing to a blog Right now, I am writing within Diigo.  I have set  up Diigo to publish to my Edublogs account.  So as I surf the web and come across an interesting website, I can highlight the most relevant text then right-click to bookmark, tag and write a sticky note to comment.  In the same drop-down menu, I can "blog this," which I am doing now. Here’s the link to a description of a joint venture to produce collaborative video for wikimedia.  This will go into my Diigo bookmarks with the tags, Web 2.0, authoring, video production.

Last month I lamented the fact that I couldn't find a tool that would allow me to use a yellow highlighter on web pages. I wanted to recreate the feeling I get with books, where I could go to a page and see all of my highlights and notes. Enter Diigo, which is giving me a most satisfying online highlighting experience. Because I wanted to make sure that Diigo really did what it promised, I started with adding the Diigolet bookmarklet to my browser toolbar. (They offer versions for Firefox, Flock, Safari, Opera and IE.) Within seconds, I was happily highlighting web pages and adding sticky notes to my highlights. Even better, when I returned to a page I'd highlighted and activated the bookmarklet, my highlights and stickies were right on the page, not stored in a notebook as I experienced with Google Notebooks and i-lighter, my two previous solutions for online notetaking. After a week or so of the bookmarklet, I moved into full installation of the Diigo toolbar. This added the ability to instantly blog material that I'd highlighted and quick access to some powerful search functions and my bookmarked sites. It also ensured that my notes and highlighting would show up automatically every time I visited a page I'd worked on previously. I'm just beginning to explore some of the more advanced options, such as being able to forward my highlights and notes to others via email, and I'm sure that eventually they'll become useful to me. But if I'm honest, it's the yellow highlighter and sticky note option that has really sold me.

Recommended Tool for Feature-Hungry Technophiles: Diigo Diigo has everything I’ve been looking for in a great social bookmarking/collaborative research tool—except ease of use. The tagging system is still buggy (renaming a tag or deleting it can lead to unexpected results), and the interface has some usability issues that I’ve already discussed with one of Diigo’s co-founders. For instance, tag clouds only display the first 18 characters or so of each tag, preferences on how to view your tags revert to default settings every time the page refreshes, etc. Unfortunately, Diigo is still too frustrating to use for me to recommend it to non-tech-savvy educators, but I hope its shortcomings will be resolved soon. If that happens, I’ll become a major Diigo evangelist. If not, I might have to embrace a more bare-bones bookmarking tool like Del.icio.us and search for a separate tool that just handles collaborative research well. Google Notebook is next on my list of tools to check out for that.