Well, this week I did a lot of sifting. I've tried a few of the tools before - glogster, googledocs, delicious and I really wanted to try something new. Ok, I have lots that I want to try new... This week I decided to take a stroll through Diigo. I was hooked after watching the tour - I will admit, it's not the most captivating tour, but so much cool stuff!! I still have much more investigating and playing to do, but I really like the idea that my students could form research groups and collaborate in this way online! So far from my dabbling Diigo takes delicious up 5000 notches. I made a delicious account this past year and have only used it a couple times, Diigo I will use very often.
So far I have just bookmarked basics for my classes this summer such as, D2L, our course page, the textbook chapters, my blog, etc. I just wanted to get my feet wet. I am most looking forward to doing my reading assignments without the desire to print them out and take notes, but rather being able to bookmark them to diigo and take notes/highlight right on them! This really is what I have been looking for in terms of note taking on my computer.
The idea that students could do research projects without printing out 50pages of text each is stellar. This website really allows us to be more green in the classroom.
I am considering having my students sign up for this at the beginning of the year and showing them how to use it collaboratively (all I need to do to change from considering to doing is a little more usage of Diigo, to make sure that it really does everything I want it to do). I think the use of this site could really change the way that we have our students do research projects and reading assignments. It could also change the way our students view technology - I think it would be a huge advantage to students to be able to go to just one site to reference all of their bookmarks, research and websites. The iPhone app would also be a bonus for many of my students - they use that thing like it's a third arm anyway, now let's add some more educational value to it.
Alright, time for more playing and then to clean up! My sister-in-law is coming to stay with us and flying in from Portugal. Lots to do!! Have a GREAT weekend everyone!
Diigo seems to be a great tool. I am looking forward to seeing how you are thinking about using it!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go check it out... We are dying for iPhone coverage here in MT. If verizon could just work it out with ATT other cities besides Bozeman could have working iPhones. :). Don't believe ATT's map... They don't really cover most of the state!
ReplyDeleteI was excited about Diigo too. You're right - the highlight/ sticky note idea is awesome, and I am all for less printing to be moe green in the classroom. Did you try some of the highlighting? It worked for some of the documents, but when I tried to highlight the articles on D2L I couldn't get it to highlight. Did you try that out? Have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteI first liked the idea of diigo and delicious for keeping bookmarks all in one place. I always bookmark great sites at home, but then never remember to mark those sites on my computer at school. I have to admit, I had no idea there were sites like this out there! That is very cool that you can write on websites and use sticky notes and things in diigo. I think it could be useful for even the simple research projects I do with my middle school students..helping them keep all of their info in one place, and improve their note-taking while reading skills!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't planning on checking out Diigo as I (semi)regularly use delicious, but your account has piqued my interest. Another new tool to discover!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't going to check out Diigo either. This really does seem like a useful and cool new tool. I really didn't see much of the usefulness of social bookmarking, but then again all I've used was del.icio.us.
ReplyDeleteJYates
I also think Diigo has great potential. I was primarily thinking of it for myself, but you have some great ideas. I'll have to check out the iPhone app too. My students say they never check their email. This would indeed be a great way to have them share information with each other and just keep adding to it. I think the highlighting and annotating will be really useful to them. It will be interesting to find out if any of them are using it. I'm also thinking of sending out a survey (I use surveymonkey.com a lot) to find out how many of them are familiar with some of these tools. Our college develops workshops for students on a variety of things but I don't think they do one on web tools, perhaps they should! Do you know what other kinds of webtools your students already use?
ReplyDelete@elc - haha, I will always maintain that verizon is the best :-)
ReplyDelete@Nancy - I am also having trouble highlighting the D2L articles - I can highlight anything that isn't PDF on the page. :-( Still a good tool, but it would be nice if you could highlight the PDF.
@kcburke - I really like your idea of using a survey at the start of the year! I always have my students fill out an information sheet, but a survey is even better - they get started on the web right away. I know that my students use googledocs, glogster, facebook and twitter, but I'm not sure which others they commonly use.