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.
