Diigo - 21st
Century Tool for Research, Reading and CollaborationBy Peggy Steffens
The proliferation of Web 2.0 tools on the
web offers numerous ways of collaborating with students and
colleagues. One of the most exciting and valuable tools I have
seen recently is Diigo, especially with the introduction of
Diigo for Educator accounts.
Diigo is a social bookmarking site similar
to Delicious but with more features that are beneficial for the
classroom. If you are unfamiliar with social bookmarking, let me
explain. When you sit at a computer, you can find a web site
you really like and bookmark it or add it to your favorites so
you can go back to it in the future. The problem with
bookmarking on a computer is that in order to get back to that
bookmark, you have to be on THAT SPECIFIC computer. If you
bookmarked the site at school, when you go home it doesn’t
appear on your list. If you bookmark it on one computer in the
lab, you must bookmark it on every computer in the lab in order
to have access to it. So, the first great thing about Diigo is
that your bookmarks follow you wherever you go. When you
bookmark a site using your Diigo account, you can have access to
it at work, home, the computer lab or library. The other great
thing is that once you bookmark it, you can share your book mark
links with students and colleagues and they can all have access
to your sites.
EdTech RoundUp on 21 Dec 08The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On An MS-Word version of this essay is available at http://www.downes.ca/files/future2008.doc In the summer of 1998, over two frantic weeks in July, I wrote an essay titled The Future of Online Learning. (Downes, 1998) At the time, I was working as a distance education and new media design specialist at Assiniboine Community College, and I wrote the essay to defend the work I was doing at the time. "We want a plan," said my managers, and so I outlined the future as I thought it would - and should - unfold.
