New Learning 2 (Heather)-Diigo

From Diigo website: "Pronounced as Dee'go, it is an abbreviation for 'Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff'."

Use:  This is a browser add-on that you install on your computer.  It allows you to annotate, archive and organize information that you find on the web.  This allows the user to, on any website, highlight text or photos, and add sticky notes to the page.  

All annotations will be visible on the page when you return to it (once you open the diigo app while on that page).  Additionally, when you click on the archival component of the app, you will have bookmarks to access all of your annotations.  Next, you can archive pages so that you don't need to worry that the link will become broken or changes after you have referenced it.  You can also tag information within each page so that they are easy for you to find again later.  It has more capabilities than I can list here, but it is important to note that this work can be shared and accessed by multiple users.  Diigo is divided into 3 components: "My Library" (for researching), "My Network" (for sharing), and "My Groups" (for collaborating).

Cost:  With a free diigo account, you can download the browser add-on and add unlimited bookmarks/notes, limited social privileges for anti-spam, and mark 500 highlights and 100 images.  There are additional paid subscriptions available for $2-$59 per year.

Review from guidingtech.com  

Thoughts:  I can absolutely see how this would be useful when working on a research paper (maybe not so much for taking notes on a chapter in a paper text)!!  I can't count how many times I have accessed information via library journals and then later forgotten which article I was using because I forgot to copy the URL.  Additionally, this would save me during the research process from having a gazillion tabs open, since my research can easily be compiled in one place without the risk of one of my children closing a tab and my having to start my search over.  Additionally, it allows me to highlight PDFs and webpages without having to print them out or digitally screen capture them.  I like that the additional bar is opened only when I click on the bookmark, rather than being an additional ever-present toolbar.  

One thing that I don't like so much is that it seems that you can only read what is on 1 sticky note at a time, versus being able to view them all at once.  Another is that sticky notes cannot be edited once they are saved. :(

Click to see my Diigo (added to the New Learning Ch 2 website provided in the text).

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My comments can be found on the following write-ups for this week:

Kim Brain Rules 2 Storify Write-up- Storify looks really cool!  I think that I would like to tackle that one next week.  It seems to present information in a multi-media blog format, which is really nice to look at.  I like the capabilities to embed or share your storify, it seems more accessible than viewers having to sign-up for an account.  I can see this working for presenting current events information, but I'll have to keep thinking about how I would use it in a course.  The media content that Kim added definitely drove home the Brain Rules emphasis on exercise to improve brain function.

Kelly's New Learning Notes: Pear Deck Write-up- It seems like Pear Deck has some privacy concerns.  In the same way that I don't care much about who views my Facebook page (my posts are pretty innocuous), I wouldn't care so much about revealing access to my google account.  That said, I can imagine that there would be students who wouldn't want to allow an entire class and teacher access to their account via pear deck.  Given Kelly's concerns about limited functionality, I think that I would rather stick to the googledocs version of powerpoint or prezi for sharing a slideshow with a larger audience.  It seems that Pear Deck is not worth the trouble!