Monday, July 13, 2009

DIIGO (dee go) - Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff


DIIGO - Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff. What a great service this group provides! Love what it does, how it works! Love it, Love it, Love it! Fantastic! I realize this sounds pretty biased, but what can I say.

I've been using Diigo for about six months, and it's one of my favorite Web 2.0 tools. I love to be organized, and this tool does it for me. I'm a bigtime user of Spread Firefox Affiliate Button browser. Prior to finding Diigo, I used and still to some extent use Xmarks. It allows me to synchronize my bookmarks between computers by creating an online account that stores my information and updates automatically when I bookmark a site. This is good, but still requires the user to have a high level of organization.

Generally, Diigo is classified as a social bookmarking tool, and I suppose it probably is used this way by tweenagers around the world sharing the latest bookmarks of the Jonas Brothers sites with their friends, but that is not how I use Diigo. It's certainly not a social bookmarking service, but instead a professional bookmarking service. I'm not sure I'm ready to share out my bookmarks to my friends for easy access to links to my online banking, or bookmarks to to my email logins. That's why I still use Xmarks. In fact, Xmarks has added an encrypted security feature that is very good at preventing people from using your computer to access your bookmarks. But for me, Diigo allows me to create categories of topics that I can share out among my staff and colleagues. I realize there are other sites like this out there like del.icio.us, or Reddit, or StumbleUpon. They all have their strengths, but I'm still partial to Diigo.

Here's a video overview worth watching.



After watching this video, it's not hard to see why educators love this tool. Here are a few ways to use it with students:
  • Create a group and have your students become members of a related specific topic or theme, where they will add bookmarks for others students and the teacher to view,
  • When the students add Diigo bookmarks, often a tag lists comes up with it already, so you don't have to add more, or you can list as it relates to the theme or topic they are working on,
  • A teacher can have the students highlight specific parts of a webpage that really stood out for them by right clicking and highlighting the text and then adding an annotation for others to view, (Students need to download and install the Diigo Toolbar for Firefox or Internet Explorer for this feature to work properly),
  • When a teacher wants to leave a note for students to read about a site when they get there, they can right click and leave a digital sticky note for students to read and add comments,
  • It's a great way to collaborate and share information between students and students, and students and teachers,
  • After the teacher and students have created a list of bookmarks about a topic, they can organize them, annotate them, tag them, and then share them in a webslide format. I did my first webslide this past week about Web 2.0 tools I particularly like and use, and added music to the slideshow by clicking on the customize feature. Here it is: Web 2.0 Webslide. This a great feature to publish your findings for others.
Here's a video that provides a demo and overview of a few elements of Diigo, particularly how a teacher might use it in giving feedback to students.



There are so many more things a teacher can do with this tool. I'm barely scratching the surface about its potential. Because I'm not in the classroom, I use Diigo mostly to share resources for professional development of teachers. But if I was in the classroom, I would use this tool all the time. Check it out, it really is a worthwhile Web 2.0 tool.


1 comment:

Ruth Abatzoglou said...

l always like to read your post Vince. You were the first to tell me about Diggo last Winter and I had no idea it was so new to you at that time, you sound like an Diggo expert now. Ruth