In light of all the chaos and uncertainty surrounding current events, online tools are becoming more of a necessity than a convenience. With the requirements of social-distancing, self-isolation, remote learning, and everything else entailed under the mandates by government officials, we find ourselves resorting to our tablets, phones, laptops, and other devices more than ever before. I've wished for ways to communicate with my colleagues and to share with them things I'm finding out - and while we have each other's phone numbers, emails, and social media, those are just not great platforms to share easily. E-mail is probably the best choice among those since it puts the information in a place where the recipient can easily find and access it - but it does have some drawbacks. We have dozens - hundreds? - of emails daily with updates and new information and questions. If somehow the link or resource is shared inaccurately, there is now an additional obstacle to overcome before accessing the intended materials.
Enter Diigo. I feel like Diigo is similar to the aggregate pages we played with last week - but still different enough to be cool in its own right. I liked that once I installed the Chrome extension, every time I clicked on a piece of information, a mini-toolbar came up and gave me the option of bookmarking that info or highlighting a particular phrase. This is a great advantage when you're researching something and don't need to keep the entire page - just a phrase or quote. I liked all the options of being able to share it, read it later, etc. I especially thought it cool that it will save/archive a page or info even if it "disappears" from the web! So many times I've "pinned" a cool idea or recipe only to go back and find out that the page no longer exists.
As far as using Diigo within education, I see more uses at the elementary level than for a Twitter type product. You could have a group for each class with information/links/resources pertinent to that class and have the students go to that page to use that pre-approved material for projects or learning. It would be great for sharing within your PLC's or other teacher groups. It's especially nifty that you can access it from anywhere and read what you've saved or are in the middle of whenever you have a moment.
I think that Diigo may be something that I will utilize as a librarian across the district to share articles, resources, videos, and other such information. As with all the Web 2.0 tools we've been experiencing, each one of us will have to decide which ones best serve our purposes, our schools, our communities. There is a great big world out there and it seems all the much bigger now that we aren't in constant contact with others - and yet, because of the tools we have at our fingertips, we can close those gaps and bring others to us and still facilitate collaboration and education.
Enter Diigo. I feel like Diigo is similar to the aggregate pages we played with last week - but still different enough to be cool in its own right. I liked that once I installed the Chrome extension, every time I clicked on a piece of information, a mini-toolbar came up and gave me the option of bookmarking that info or highlighting a particular phrase. This is a great advantage when you're researching something and don't need to keep the entire page - just a phrase or quote. I liked all the options of being able to share it, read it later, etc. I especially thought it cool that it will save/archive a page or info even if it "disappears" from the web! So many times I've "pinned" a cool idea or recipe only to go back and find out that the page no longer exists.
As far as using Diigo within education, I see more uses at the elementary level than for a Twitter type product. You could have a group for each class with information/links/resources pertinent to that class and have the students go to that page to use that pre-approved material for projects or learning. It would be great for sharing within your PLC's or other teacher groups. It's especially nifty that you can access it from anywhere and read what you've saved or are in the middle of whenever you have a moment.
I think that Diigo may be something that I will utilize as a librarian across the district to share articles, resources, videos, and other such information. As with all the Web 2.0 tools we've been experiencing, each one of us will have to decide which ones best serve our purposes, our schools, our communities. There is a great big world out there and it seems all the much bigger now that we aren't in constant contact with others - and yet, because of the tools we have at our fingertips, we can close those gaps and bring others to us and still facilitate collaboration and education.
Comments
Post a Comment