DIIGO
A Powerful Collaborative
Research Tool
Address:
http://diigo.com
K-12 and higher-ed teachers can apply for a Diigo
educator upgrade
that gives them a special premium account. The account’s additional features include creating student accounts for an entire class, class groups, and privacy settings for added security.
This Web 2.0 application is a research tool that allows users to bookmark and annotate web pages. It is also a social bookmarking tool enabling users to share knowledge and comments with others. It is a powerful group research tool.
A big plus for using this Web 2.0 tool is the ability to access your bookmarks anywhere you have access to the Internet.
Diigo is an acronym for Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other Stuff.
21st Century Skills
This Web 2.0 teaching tool is an easy collaborative research tool for students. It allows users to share web pages and respond to each other on the pages.
It utilizes essential information literacy skills, such as recording information by highlighting key words and main ideas. Students can categorize and organize the information with the use of tagging.
Students can use their tag dictionaries for quick reference to materials they found, as well as to collaboratively share their findings with others.
The sticky notes feature helps students create notes to analyze and evaluate information and receive input from others.
In the Classroom
Teachers can start by bookmarking an appropriate web site or reference article and highlight it to focus on the main ideas. They can use the sticky notes to add comments to emphasize the things being discussed in class. Also, a sticky note can be added that asks a question to solicit responses from students.
When students access the web page using the provided url, they will see the information and teacher annotations. Students can then add their own comments and answer any questions left by the teacher.
Andy Whiteway, an English teacher in the UK, writes on his blog about how he used Diigo in his classroom. Students used the site to analyze poetry by W. H. Auden. He shares what worked and what he will do differently next time.
”First thoughts on using diigo in class”
”Teaching a lesson – part 2”
”An evaluation using diigo.com with students”
Tutorials
”Diigo V3: Highlight and Share the Web!”
”Diigo: Improving how we find, share, and save information”
This video show how to create WebSlides using your bookmarked web pages and offers suggestions for ways to use them as presentations.
”Web Slides”
Safety Concerns
Benefits of using an Education Account:
1. Privacy settings of student accounts are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with them.
2. Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.
3. The security settings makes accounts for students under 13 years old unable to customize their profiles (no image uploads, etc.).
Remind students to not identify themselves with their full first and last names, home address or phone number when posting their work online.
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