I’ve been exploring the use of Diigo on my own and just introduced it my GLS students last week. There were many kinks and questions from my students from a small homework assignment that was due today, but in class we managed to work through them and problem solve together. 
I asked if any of them truthfully thought they would use it and surprisingly about half of their hands went up as they saw the benefit of organising their notes for research purposes and the collaboration side of it. The best way that I learn is to try something immediately or else I will forget about it. I enjoy trying new things in my class and having my students ask questions that I don’t know the answer to – although, at times scary, I like the challenge. It’s a great tool and I’m thinking of other ways to incorporate it into my other classes. Looking forward to learning about other tools that will help out my students.
Re-thinking learning for the 21st Century
Great post on both an approach to EdTech (use it or lose it!) and how students’ willingness to see and work with new tools. @ddoucet would love this too! I’ve used Diigo to successfully “crowd source” a textbook (okay, it was more like a collection of resources) for a course that had no text. Diigo was the tool that I used, and I really haven’t looked back!
Keep up the great exploration!
This is a great post on how you explored using Diigo in the classroom, Alaina! Way to go jumping in with exploring this tool with your class. I’d love to hear more about what you did with your class and how they engaged with the tool. Were students working on their own annotation and then posting it to the group, or were they collaborating on the annotations together? I am also exploring how to use Diigo in my social science & humanities course this year. Can’t wait to hear more about your adventures with Diigo!
Alaina,
I have been using diigo for almost a decade now and it has become an invaluable archive and history of all of my web research. Try exploring the Diigo communities next and see if there are any that match your interests – https://groups.diigo.com/
J
Hi Alaina,
Looking forward to hearing more about your use of Diigo and the new tools you’ll be experimenting with in your classroom. Of all the C21 tools, I’m looking to use Diigo better. @ddoucet will be so proud 😉 Check out this super inspiring blog post of his: http://cohort21.com/derekdoucet/2015/01/15/creating-a-culture-of-learning/
Looking forward to chatting at our second F2F!
Laura
Alaina! I totally agree with you when you wrote, “The best way that I learn is to try something immediately or else I will forget about it.” I think there so much wisdom in this. I have a “long term school” checklist on my Wunderlist app of things I eventually want to get around to, but I think your approach is probably much better and certainly more proactive. Good on you for striking when the iron was hot!
Did you set up any criteria for your students when choosing articles to post to your Diigo page?
Hey Robertson, Diigo is a tool that is gaining ground at LCS based on the improvements and free educator license. It’s something I used a long time ago like @gnichols for “crowd sourcing” our readings for our Global Issues unit among others in AP French. It’s power is in the comments and sticky notes to really push inquiry. I’d love to swing by your class if you wanted to show them these aspects of the tool. Nicely done, and I look forward to learning with you this year in how these tools can improve students learning!
I’m eager to see how Diigo could be used in my FSL classroom. I know that @ddoucet mentioned it, and I’m very curious. But also very cautious about taking too much on. Oh, and also going down that rabbit hole. It seems like one could spend days there??