Diigo for Professional Development
The teachers that I work with often ask me, “Where do you find out about all these new tools and online resources?”. In addition to the use of Twitter, Diigo is at the top of my goto list for finding new resources.
At its most simple, Diigo is a social bookmarking site to which you can save your bookmarks and favorite websites to access from any location. But, what is social bookmarking? Watch this short video, “Social Bookmarking in Plain English”, for a quick and amusing explanation:
But, that’s just the start. Diigo does so much more! On their About page, Diigo states…
“If you browse or read a lot on the web, we believe you will find Diigo indispensable. Diigo is two services in one — it is a research and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other.” http://www.diigo.com/about
Not only can you bookmark sites, but you can share them to specific people, groups, lists, and everyone in the world. You can highlight the pages and add sticky notes for yourself, your group or the public. You can easily capture and annotate images on the web to save to your virtual library. And that’s not all… check out the about page and the video below to learn more about using Diigo for research:
However, what’s great about Diigo is not only can you use all these great tools for your own personal research, but you can use them for building your personal learning network, collaboration and professional development.
Check out this video to see how you can use Diigo to build your Personal Learning Network:
Feel free to check out my Diigo account to continue to build your PLN. Follow me and my resources at http://www.diigo.com/user/diannekrause
Check out this video to see how you can use Diigo to collaborate:
So, in answering the question that started this post, I often explain to teachers how I use the groups in Diigo. I have found and follow 30+ groups in Diigo and I subscribe to receiving daily emails from the groups of the newest bookmarks added to the groups in that day. Some days I get 20 emails, some days I get 2, but every single day I get emails with new links and resources to check out. What’s great about getting emails like this is that SOMEONE somewhere found it valuable enough to add to a Diigo group, so it is most likely worthwhile to check out. As I check out the resources I then add the ones I think are valuable to my Diigo account and the lists and groups that I administer. Now, most people don’t want to receive emails every day, so Diigo allows you to get updates at different intervals from the groups. A weekly update is normally what most people want or need.
Another point to mention is that I hardly ever go straight to Google to find a resource or online tool. Why search the wide open internet when I can go to Diigo and search websites that others have found, have annotated and have left comments on? A search on Diigo will give me fewer and better results than a wide-open Google search.
Not only can Diigo be used for your own professional development and growth, it can also be used for collaborative research among and between your students. With their Teacher Console, teacher can create classes and student accounts so that students can annotate, highlight, place sticky notes, and save resources to your class or groups within your class. Think of it as a whole new way to complete a group research project!
Have any other great uses of Diigo you’d like to share? Leave us a comment on how you are using Diigo or other social bookmarking sites for professional growth or collaboration.
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[...] site. Someone found the resource good enough to put there, so it must be worth something, right? (Learn more about using Diigo for Professional Development [...]