Diigo In Education

La Salle University’s New Program for Teaching Educators of Autistic Children Takes a Multidisciplinary Approach That Includes Educating and Caring for the Entire Family

So why do I use Diigo?   I like its ability to enhance my bookmarking with highlights and sticky notes, that are retained with the page when I go back to it. I like that you can highlight and publish easily from Diigo to you blog or an email, and a reference appears automatically along with the posting. I like the ability to create lists on specific topics that can be shared. I like the ability to create groups to pool resources for specific subjects. I recently joined a few Diigo groups and have had some very useful sites brought to my attention. I like that you can access and search the bookmarks anywhere by full-text and tags. I like to search for the most popular bookmarks on a particular subject. I like the different ways to share and aggregate information that  Diigo offers. I have set it up so that a list of my new bookmarks appears on this blog on a weekly basis but this is just one option. You can now choose to automatically The tool bar is easy to download and makes it easy to use and aspect of Diigo whenever you are on line.

Of course you can keep things private if you choose to but that is really defeating the purpose of Diigo in the first place. Diigo also began offering, on Sept 19th, a Diigo Education Account Facility. I haven’t investigated this yet but a post about it was put onto the SLAV Bright Ideas blog. It is worth looking at. From Diigo ‘The Diigo Educator Accounts offer a suite of features that makes it incredibly easy for teachers to get their entire class of students or their peers started on collaborative research using Diigo’s powerful web annotation and social bookmarking technology.’ For an educator account, you do have to apply and fill out how/why you want to use Diigo in your school.

He suggested a "hybrid" learning approach. Schools can teach essential knowledge and critical thinking through somewhat traditional means. But they should complement that teaching with what Seely Brown called "passion-based learning" that focuses on getting students more engaged with topic experts.

Other people with similar interest would also be able to see your highlights. Diigo also allows a group of people to pool findings through group bookmarks, highlights, sticky notes and forums. Diigo has groups that are already formed. You can join any Diigo group for collaborative research. People are also using Diigo by posting to their blog depending on tags. For me the best feature is the highlighting of the website. As we all know, research on the internet can be overwhelming. The highlighting feature makes it much easier. Not only do I have favorite websites bookmarked but I also have certain parts highlighted on that website. Educators can join the education group to search the web for anything that can help them with their classrooms. I also think that teachers can use Diigo to teach students how to do research. Better yet, educators can teach them how to do some collaborative research.

With all the interaction and kind help that we’ve received from the education community, we’d like to recognize those educators who are taking pioneering steps in getting their students and/or their peers started on collaborative research using Diigo’s powerful features. To express our appreciation, we’ve designed a “Diigo Education Pioneer” badge especially for you! Along with that, a big “Thank you”!

So, who gets to have this “Diigo Education Pioneer” badge?  Well, once your account has been approved for the education upgrade and you have started using and sharing Diigo with your students and/or colleagues in an educational setting,  you can get your own in your “Teacher Console” area >> Get Your Own Badge! We have a whole array of nice looking badges to suit your own personal style

Although it pains me to say it, I think there is something better than Delicious out there. I first came across Diigo in the summer and have been playing with it on and off ever since.  Social bookmarking has been an absolute godsend to education and Delicious was at the forefront of that - but, in my view, it’s been surpassed. I had high hopes of the latest version when it was released at the end of July, but, to be honest, they just focused on the instructional design and look-and-feel rather than functionality.  You still can’t create groups or lists, or send messages to the people in your network, and you can’t annotate either.  All of which can be accomplished in Diigo and more

Diigo groups are ideal for team research If you have any need for team-based research, Diigo groups are ideal for you. A Diigo group can be public, private or semi-private. Pool and organize resources using group bookmarks When a member of a Diigo group comes across a web page, he can highlight, tag, and share it to the group. In this way, group bookmarks become a repository of collective research. Group members can also vote up bookmarks so important information stays on the top. Group sticky notes are great for discussion When adding sticky notes, you can make them private, public, or viewable only by members of a certain group. With group sticky notes, group members can interact and discuss important points right on the web page, preserving the original context. Group tag dictionary to enforce tagging consistency The group administrator can define a set of recommended tags for the group to help enforce tagging consistency. Diigo has recently launched an education version, where you can create class accounts and add privacy settings, so I recommend you have a look at this. Oh, and for those of you who can’t quite leave Delicious behind just yet, you can synch the two so that whatever you save in Diigo gets automatically put into your Delicious account as well.

As promised, I’ve compiled your suggested educational websites and posted them on Diigo, as well. Diigo, by the way, is a bit like delicious on steroids. It has a really straight-forward interface and allows you to highlight and annotate sections of a website (perfect for building web quests and helping direct research for your students). Feel free to check back on the zdneteducation page on Diigo for newly shared sites.