Having worked with Diigo as only an organization too, this assignment was really fun. I loved seeing what ideas the class came up with and what ways we use Diigo differently. I experimented with both private and public groups and found that the invite and accept process was pretty simple.

I posted to Christine's Documentary film festival group. I had difficulty finding reviews for my first choice, Running the Sahara. Most of the reviews I found were user reviews and I wasn't sure that fit the assignment. So I went to choice #2, Urgh! A Music War. I was able to find a few reviews for this one, but had to search a few library catalogs to find a Dewey Call Number instead of just DVD Urgh. How did I find my first review, using one of Christine's links, www.documentaryfilms.net. And that's precisely how I see Diigo working. We share both where we go and can add what we think of the places we go with the annotations. Educators could use this in many ways, supply a list of links and have kids post stickies is a great use. It's sort of a wiki, in blog form with the way it evolves.

I also had troubles with highlighting going away, losing annotations if I left the browser tab and other head scratching moments when using Diigo. But for people who are on computers at various locations it's awesome. Having your bookmarks wherever you need them. I even was able to see stuff on my phone and was surprised at how well I could navigate Diigo on my Droid.

Google Chrome may be onto something with bookmark syncs but I'll stick with Diigo for now. I don't have access to Google Chrome everywhere like I do my Diigo bookmarks. And I see down below there is a Diigo Chrome Extension, which I hope works great because Google will control everything eventually....

My Groovy Group is all about making connections with fiction books. This is a popular activity at my school right now as many teachers are having kids connect their fiction story with a non-fiction book. The outcome they hope to achieve is raising students ISTEP Scores in non-fiction comprehension.

My activities are:
#1 Tie story elements to non-fiction sources, make a list of people, places, things, etc and explore...
#2 Connect the book to the author, find out what inspired the author to write the book...

If you'd like to join just ask! I really just want to see how that feature works in Diigo, sorry to add the extra step for you....

http://groups.diigo.com/group/make_connections

I have added bookmarks to an experiments group like the others. I do not know exactly how many because one seems to not want to save to my library! My highlighted version of Audubon just won't save in my library right. But each time I highlight it seems to make a new entry. Which had me very confused. Then I saw the limiters in my items on the upper left for just my bookmarks and not everything. That helped some, but I still couldn't seem to get Audubon to save right. I kept losing my tags and or highlights. Sounds like I am not the only one, so I will just trudge on.....I should probably mention I also use the Diigo toolbar and sidebar in Firefox on Windows 7. But when loading my library in IE, it looked the same. But as I look over what I've highlighted, it's added to my library as a new item. I'd rather just go to the website to see my highlights because now my library is more cluttered. I'll have to see if this is setting related. (Isn't everything setting related these days?)

My focus for these links is making connections to the book I am currently reading and exploring. I'm not too far into Okay For Now, by Gary D. Schmidt but I like it. Schmidt is a good author to make non-fiction connections with because he brings a lot out and most is real life stuff.

Overall I like using Diigo because it helps me stay organized. I usually add a tag specific to which class I used the website for. That comes in handy for any of the Eduscapes classes because they tend to run together after you've taken 5 like I have! (Props to Dr. Lamb and Dr. Johnson!)

My username URL is http://www.diigo.com/user/shumphreylib

I attended James Whitcomb Riley High School in South Bend, his Little Orphant Annie poem was listed on Poets.org:
http://diigo.com/0l6u0

This poem reminds me of my mom for two reasons. First her name is Ann and she goes by Annie. Second, both her parents died when she was young. While she was fortunate to not have been an orphan, I think she still had a difficult life, even if she doesn't really admit it.

The way the poem is written I hope is a reflection on how Annie would talk and not a reflection of Hoosiers as Riley is known as the Hoosier Poet. But it is fun to read.

I also like how the poem has a touch of witch speak and a mention of prayer.

-Shawn