Diigo for Gourdheads

Diigo is a unique online, cloud, tool for personal research, collaborative efforts, and social networking. The research component allows a person to search and annotate information pertaining to topics of personal interests. Because Diigo enables sharing of bookmarked sources of information, groups can work together on a project by sharing findings and notes that can be seen by all. Taking this activity further into social networking, a person's bookmarked and annotated library of interests can be sharing with the Diigo community at large to locate like-minded folk of the same curious ilk. It can also be used in a classroom setting for students researching personal interests within a larger topic.

As a social networking tool (2.0), Diigo goes beyond previous concoctions of online social skills by combining the online force of connecting with others with connecting the background information that fuels others' interests. It is a scholarly way to meet & greet others, encourage reading, and provide avenues for displaying critical thinking.  It is an advantage to have strength in numbers--the more the merrier!  With many people converging on a similar interest, more information from as many varied sources can be located and shared. The diversity of viewpoints that generate such varied sources lead to broader understandings and thinking. Sometimes all that's needed is a different point of view to open new interests and further action, you know?

It's like a patch of gourds growing in a field: one plant can use the nutrients available for growth. A moth visits in the evening, pollinates, and hopefully the plant produces 8 to 10 worthwhile, useful gourds that continue on to some purposeful end product once dehydrated and crafted. BUT, grow lots of gourd plants in the same patch, sharing nutrients and flowering widely together, and the many white flowers in the dimming evening light attract lots of moths and YeeHa! a boatload of pollination happens producing more fruit than would have happened otherwise!  It's a gourd day!

Gourd blossoms at night.

In the classroom, this same wide sweep of pollination of ideas can happen as students join together and get more out of a lesson of learning that they would have individually. Working with a central topic, students research their personal interests surrounding that topic. Since no one person could ever cover all aspects of an idea, social bookmarking allows students to see different aspects of a project by reading others' notes and highlights. Discussing differences and similarities crystallizes the lesson and makes learning personal.

All the ISTE NETS T standards loop around for student benefit but #1: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning is the standard social bookmarking targets. Getting the students engaged and collaborating is the core issue. By learning in ways that reflect daily life, students incorporate personal connections with personal learning. They are encouraged to see many points of view, reflect upon different sources of information, and collaborate using digital tools. Of course, this presupposes the students have access to this kind of technology. Until my own school system invests in the equipment to support such student engagement, Diigo would have to be left to the realm of a teacher collaborative tool (thus enacting #5 standard: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership...specifically to improve professional practices by participating in learning communities).

Browsers. It is my understanding a browser is the searching mechanism that allows online access to websites, blogs, images....information. Add ons are specific tools that are tacked on to a browser to do targeted duties, much like a  pollination cap on a gourd plant. The plant accesses and carries the nutrients, water, and ground minerals to the fruit but the pollination cap is the add on that has the targeted job of capturing pollen from one flower to another. Right now I use Google Chrome as a browser with the Diigo add on when I'm at home. My machine can accept newer technology, although I seem to be far behind the needs of this class at times. At school I am woefully behind the times. Recently we even lost Microsoft Word and now use OpenOffice. One of the schools has loaded Chrome onto a machine for me, but add ons are blocked. But, add ons at home seem to work o.k. once the learning curve evens out....even then I am, at times, unclear about where or how things happens since there tends to be a fair about of bouncing going on where images or pages move without reason or warning.