Well, this week I was hoping to use Diigo to change the way I mark my classes Google journal sites. I really like my students having their own sites because it makes it really easy for them to respond in different formats. Having a site means they can also develop their own design thus personalizing everything a little more. The only thing I didn’t like about the online journal system last year was that I could only ever offer feedback at the bottom of the post. Often, this would lead to long-winded explanations as to where in the post the comment applied. Diigo seemed like it would solve this drawback.
Diigo advertises itself as a “multi-tool for knowledge management”. This means you can establish and share links libraries, annotate online text, apply sticky notes, create annotated screenshots and save pages to read later. The feature I most liked and was going to used was the ability to share an annotated webpage with my students via a simple link. This all seemed to great so I went ahead with a trial run and everything seemed to work well. Unfortunately, today in class I asked a student to open up the ink I had sent her. Sure enough, there were all my annotations but they were on an empty page; her Google site page was nowhere to be seen. We experimented with her joining Diigo but this still didn’t solve it. I am now hunting for the answer because the sharing is so easy with Diigo that it is work pursuing. As soon as you click share, five options are provided: Facebook, Twitter, via Email, Via Google + or simply taking the link and putting it somewhere.
Diigo might be a great way to make sharing an article you have a strong opinion about with other people via Twitter or Facebook. Highlighting parts of the text a using sticky notes to write specific notes would show people why you have this opinion or what you thought made the article interesting. This is also a good way for students to demonstrate that they actually understand an article and can identify the key points. If i was still teaching English I would have got students annotate opinion columns with their questions and opinions. They could then send me the link and I would be able to assess their understanding. Often, when articles are cut and pasted into a Google doc the formatting and therefore some of the context is lost. Having the formatting will give me a further insight into the student’s reading of the text.
Research is a big element of any IB Group 6 subject and as such want to get my students to create and share link libraries of quality online resources for Theatre. I’ve also just read in Diigo’s weekly blog about their digital book index which is bringing together a collecting of over 140,000 free digital resources, which I am going to start exploring.
Here’s hoping that glitch has an easy fix!
Related articles
- Working with Diigo Lists and Groups (flipperteach.com)
- Diigo (chelseawolf.wordpress.com)
- Diigo Welcomes its 7th Million User with a Major Redesign (diigo.com)
hopehill 
Some great ideas on the use of diigo. I can really see this being useful for annotating articles for ESS. I am not sure how it would be useful for me in assessment yet but maybe I can figure that out when I use it.
Hi Marsha, this sounds like an interesting app. We will be starting our integrated unit with the 6th graders soon and this may be something we should explore and possibly try this year. I am not sure I understand it completely, but I am intrigued by the idea of having a library in the “cloud” with specific resources for students to access. I also like the idea of the sticky notes and text highlighters as a possible accommodation for students who may need the support. Let me know how the experiment goes. Thanks!