Diigo Does It

This is the second in a series of guest blogs. This one is by our Religious Studies Department Chairwoman, Ann Lusch. Ann is a key member of my pln. Over the last year we have encouraged each other's tech adventures. Like me, she is willing to try new things, but doesn't simply do "new" for its own sake. If she recommends Diigo, it's because she has given it a vigorous road test!

On a recent day off I had time for some leisurely browsing in my library. I'm not talking about a room in my house, or even the wonderful building crammed with books just a couple of blocks away. I'm speaking of "my library" in Diigo, the social bookmarking site that contains the compendium of website articles, blog posts and other information that I have amassed over the last few months.

The collection (much of it gathered through sharing on Twitter) is mostly about education and technology, but every once in a while there will be the occasional recipe or blog post about the lost tribes of Israel or health care reform in the U.S. That it's a bit of a mixed bag is not a problem; by clicking on tags I have applied to bookmarks along the way, in a flash I can narrow the list to a desired topic.

I will say that I love using Diigo, but I cannot compare it to that other, apparently more famous, bookmarking site that I have never used. Here's what I'm told, though: Delicious lacks two very important features that make Diigo as great as it is: highlighting and sticky notes.

In Diigo I can highlight the sections that are most pertinent to me and reread the highlighted sections (or hide them) right on the list of bookmarks. I might not even need to go back to the original page. Or perhaps I'll have a comment about the site that I can add with a sticky note -- it could be a thought, for example, that will remind me why I even bothered to bookmark the page in the first place!

I still remember the piles of index cards with scrawled notes that I cranked out diligently while doing research in a grad course or two. I'm not sure if finding good information these days is easier or not, but organizing online information most certainly is. Diigo keeps it all together.

So that's what I had in mind when I assigned research using Diigo to students in one of my classes. Pairs were required to collaborate on a paper and presentation about a chosen topic. Through a Diigo Education account I quickly created a group for my class, and on the group homepage we could all view items as they were added during the research period of the assignment. Through a "teacher console" I had access to individual pages to see what each student was contributing. And, importantly, project partners could easily share found information with one another.

It was not entirely smooth sailing. Websites posed no problems, but we did have difficulties with the subscription databases available to us through school. In the future I will know how to direct students to the persistent URL's that will enable them to actually get back to their sources through the bookmarks. Then there were the points where some of the students' highlighting or sticky notes did not appear consistently. But I'm ready to introduce it to a new class next semester. It's a valuable tool for students about to launch their college careers and, I hope, a lifetime of learning.

There are more features than this to Diigo; it's about social bookmarking after all, and there's more on sharing that I haven't shared: groups to join, friends to add. But it's not necessary to know all the ins and outs to get started. Go ahead, take the plunge, install the toolbar at diigo.com (easy to do) and start highlighting. Chances are, you'll get hooked, too.

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"The Library" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Here's Kate

Ring a Ding Ning

I finally got off the schneid and activated my Blog Squad Ning. I put out a call for members to come to the aid of my American Government students to help them with the nuances of their web site construction. I was not prepared by the immediate response I received....from adults! Our associate principal came in twice to help students one-to-one. Our library technician came in last week and hopes to come back this week. The chairwoman of our Religious Studies Department is coming in on Thursday. This has been inspiring and fun....It's nice having another adult or two in the room because these tech adventures surface a variety of perplexing and humorous issues. The students have been quite appreciative too. The atmosphere has been charged, purposeful, and fun. It makes me feel really good about my school.

Speaking of Religious Studies, I would guess we may be one of the only schools around where this particular department is leading the way in terms of pushing the social media envelope. They have put together a cool Ning for inter-department communications and two of the teachers are experimenting very daringly with wikis and Diigo. They will be guest blogging in this space very soon.

Following on the heels of the Religious Studies bunch, the English Dept. initiated its own Ning and used the forum feature very effectively to discuss a new course proposal. I thought it was a good way to use the Ning and I suspect the discussion was more balanced and focused by virtue of taking place online.

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P.S. I've become addicted of late to sports gossip-- Not Tiger Woods, but the Detroit Tigers. I check the news aggregator mlbtradrumors.com several times a day as the general managers head into their trade meetings. Great time of year for hot stove trade speculation. The rumors and news tidbits absolutely pour into this site.

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"Door Bell" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Caro's Lines

MHS In Service Materials

Planning the MHS In-Service was a career highlight. I loved pulling together the different elements and working with all those who pitched in. Other highlights from the experience would include :

* Launching so many folks on Twitter and reading through our hashtags after the event

*The energy level during the group collaboration session. The majority groups were really buzzing.

*The good humor that greeted me at the beginning. Most folks had logged Sunday work hours at Open House the day before, but were troopers at 8:30 A.M on Monday.

*There were some great questions through the day and also some impressive problem solving.

I had no major regrets but I was sorry that I frustrated many by going so fast through the social media. Perhaps adding Diigo put us on overload. I assumed more familiarity with the wiki. I also was surprised by the few I encountered who are really dug into an "I can't" position on tech. (This is certainly a self-fulfilling prophecy). I also was surprised that some folks took the group collaboration as an assignment rather than an opportunity. This was my fault to a degree not explaining the process more clearly. I also apologize if I used jargon or made references casually techie things that were not common knowledge. That is annoying.

Overall, a very cool experience for me. (And kind of glad I do not have a big presentation scheduled until March). It reminded me how very much I like the problem solving involved with using social media to meet teaching or communication goals.


I am happy to make the various presentation elements available by link for thirty days. All the original work is licensed with Creative Commons, non-commercial attribution.

Social Media (PLN, part 1)

Building a Network (PLN, part 2)

Collaborating with Collections (PLN, part 3)

An Old Dog Learning. . . .New Tricks

A "Chapter" of Baker's Digital Anthology

ITunes U Sampler

Apple Learning Interchange

Digital Anthology Movie

The Networked Student

Music Playlists

Web Warriors

Diigo Tour Videos

Free Apple Resources (including Apps).

I hope you feel free to add your own comments about the In Service or the materials.

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In Service slide created by Cheryl Corte

Under Pressure

Today, at 8:20 am I will be addressing our Curriculum Council (primarily department heads) , giving them a snapshot of the staff in-service I will be leading on Personal Learning Networks. This is what I will be telling them:

The way information is being accessed and shared is changing radically. Students must learn to access and critically evaluate information. They need to learn new skills for communicating and collaborating. But how can we teach them unless we too are plugged in?

The in-service will provided a three step program:
1) Guided Exploration of some social media (Twitter, Diigo , Ning , WikiSpaces)
2) The PLN
3) Collaboration through Digital Anthologies

In addition to three taut presentations, the day will included two extended playing/brainstorming sessions. The approach will emphasize fun, exploration, and a purposeful outcome. A wide open feedback channel will be featured (via Twitter)

I am asking the chairs to pitch this to their departments with a positive attitude, emphasizing that there will be something for everyone and that our kids really need help plugging into networks. We are trying to develop a school technology culture and we need everyone to buy in.
I'm going to mention that the usual reasons to be negative about in-service won't work this time. I won't be talking down to anyone. I have no hidden agenda. Every department has something to gain. I have everything to lose, since I will be back in the ranks, slogging away with the rest of them the next day.

I will be interested in their responses....and as always, yours.

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"Under Pressure" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Tattooed JJ

Teaching Literature Unbound

Teachers' Lounge Series, part 2 of 4

Mike and I have been close English Department and personal friends for over thirty years. I also teach social studies, and recently was sharing one of my new tech adventures in American Government class. Mike remarked that tech suited social studies as a discipline better than English. I automatically agreed. After all, one of the reasons that I chose to redesign gov' as a bookless course was because information was so readily available on the Web. Not that I have kept my English classes tech-free. In January, I presented an in-service to the department on the wonders of using hyperlinks in study guides and suggested uses for Google Docs/Sites with English classes. Since then Fran has launched a very cool collaborative project for her Women in Lit class.

But a recent experience has caused me to reconsider my agreement with Mike. While I was sitting in an airport over spring break, I noticed that I had a new Twitter "follower." When I checked the profile I discovered Jim Burke's treasure trove of Web 2.0 resources, not the least being his English Companion Ning (Join!). Days later, I read a simple tweet by Jim: "Is this the future of book?" By clicking the link he provided, I came upon a vision that could provide succor to our department, chronically troubled by book availability, and now vexed by curriculum corseting. Jim's Weekly Reader-- A Digital Anthology points the way for English lit teachers to more freely choose literature and free themselves from a dying medium (see Book End). What if our freshmen or sophomore team teachers collaborated on digital anthologies? The collections would grow, stay fresh, and become wonderfully diverse. Too much "work?" Not for the voracious readers in my department!

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Diigo is a little more futuristic as a classroom application, but it signals the end of research as most of us learned it. It will knock your socks off. In addition to allowing collaboration on bookmarks in a wild variety of ways, Diigo allows its users to share highlighting and annotations. This has tremendous possibilities for student research.

As Phil Butler points out,

Diigo allows users to add, gather or extract from pages of information and then share or work with others to further refine knowledge. . . . At Diigo . . . the atmosphere is a “thinking” one rather than a reactive one. Diigo takes all the standard Web 2.0 user tools and focuses them on connecting people with knowledge and then community.

I have already started highlighting and annotating electronic documents with Diigo. I wonder how long it will be before our students will begin building and sharing their own research databases of documents and annotations for their "papers." A video overview is posted at Diigo's site, but I prefer the one created by Liz B Davis. Checking out the demonstration of Diigo which she created with Jing will provide the bonus of allowing you to see the instructional potential of screencasting.

I know that my resourceful colleague, Lynn, hopes to explore Jing soon. The idea that one of my colleagues might soon create a Jing tutorial for students on how to to use Diigo with digital Readers puts me in Web 2.0 nirvana.


Part 3 of this series will be posted Wednesday-- Transcending Words (and copyright!)

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"The Teacher's Desk" Flick Creative Commons Photo courtesy of bitzcelt