Diigo (or goodbye Delicious)

Diigo V5: Collect and Highlight, Then Remember! from diigobuzz on Vimeo.

After three years with Delicious.com I am leaving.  Two days ago Delicious announced their changes.  I initially didn't want to change and even taught my teacher students last night in my class with them about it.  But after getting some time today to look at the changes, I am finally going to Diigo.  Diigo is a much more intuitive way to put your bookmarks on the Internet.  It also allows you to take pictures of websites and write on them and/or put digital sticky notes on them.  Also if you are a Delicious user you can import all of your sites (locks and all) and can do the same if you have been storing them on a browser on your laptop.  Above is a video showing you the features and below this is another that shows you how to use it.

Diigo for Your Android/iPhone

Okay, here is installment #2 for your Android or iPhone which lets you save pages to your Diigo account.  If you don't have Diigo, then you might want to consider it as it lets you save urls, categorize them and then even lock them (which is nice if you have a lot of websites for which you don't want to remember login/passwords) so no one can see your url.  Otherwise you can search the open urls and find lots of other people who have saved sites that are similar to yours.  I found idea on Android 4 Schools and here is my last post on Diigo. 

Diigo for Boomarking

This week my "teacher-students" will be save webpages on the cloud using Diigo.  They will learn how it can save pages and images and can be shared with others (here are my public items) or you can lock them so no one else can see them (which I use for all my teacher sites rather than writing them down).  The top video tells you about Diigo and the bottom one tells you how to use it. 

Diigo for Bookmarking & Group Projects

Long ago I stopped putting my bookmarks on Explorer, Chrome, etc. as I didn't not want to be married to one laptop.  Think about it.  Your school laptop is re-imaged probably once a year and each time you have your bookmarks deleted.  There is a way you can suck in your Chrome, Mozilla or Explorer So Diigo is a great way to save your bookmarks on the cloud.  You can set up your own account or login using Google, Twitter, Facebook or Yahoo.

Below this is a video explaining how to sign up and above is one showing how you can use groups in a class.   If you use it with your students they do not have to have a Diigo account nor even share their email (although that allow them to be updated with alerts). 

Diigo for Bookmarking and Class Groups

Long ago I stopped putting my bookmarks on Explorer, Chrome, etc. as I didn't not want to be married to one laptop.  Think about it.  Your school laptop is re-imaged probably once a year and each time you have your bookmarks deleted.  There is a way you can suck in your Chrome, Mozilla or Explorer So Diigo is a great way to save your bookmarks on the cloud.  You can set up your own account or login using Google, Twitter, Facebook or Yahoo.

Below this is a video explaining how to sign up and above is one showing how you can use groups in a class.   If you use it with your students they do not have to have a Diigo account nor even share their email (although that allow them to be updated with alerts). 

Digital Backpack Essential for your School Year

While my students do not start school until September, I know that many of you have more reasonable start times.  With that in mind I am starting a series on "backpack essentials" for teachers.  These are several items that I hope will be essential to your teaching this year.

I am starting with Diigo as one of my views of teaching is that you should have everything you are using in the cloud (no Windows, no video dics, no nothing!).  The advantage of this is that you (and your students) can move between tablets, smartphones and the computer.  So most of you save your favorites to your browser which is (except for Chrome where you would need to be logged in) and that means you are tied to your laptop.  However if you use Diigo, you can open it on any browser on any Internet connected device.  You can allow people to see what you have (which is great when you want to look for ways to better help your students learn as you can click on mine links and find other similar ones from other people).  Here, for example is mine.  Now, you can also lock down a link so no one else can see it. So I use this feature to store codes that I need which has afforded me the opportunity to throw away my many scraps of paper.  Finally you can also create categories and if you want you can suck in your bookmarks from your computer's browser so you don't have to replicate everything.

How to video

3. A written how to Uses in the classroom

Diigo for Bookmarking

I have been using Diigo for years and have written a number of posts as it allows you to bookmark websites and share them (or not). You can categorize the sites you select and find them on the web or on your smartphone.

Above is a great video I found today on FreeTech4Teachers.

Professional Learning Communities

I just taught my department about professional learning communities (PLN) last week and would have loved to have had this webpage from InformEd.  PLNs are ways that people find new information beyond their school walls.

It begins with explaining what groups you might want to join and then the protocol you would use when you join.  It also has links to a number of groups you can join.  I actually use Twitter and Google+ which are not on the group, but the author has several others to choose.  I also use Netvibes which allows me to look at updates from webpages to which I just added the InformEd page.

Next it discusses sites you can use to keep your websites.  The one I use is Diigo.  Essentially the sites that are listed are ways to bookmark your webpages in the cloud.  As with the previous section, it has lots of links.

Tips for Teaching in a Connected Classroom

I read with great interest this article from the WashPost telling readers that South Korea was scaling back its digital e-book use.   When I hear complaints the two at the top of the scale (and so it is in the article) are that kids can't concentrate online and the screen time is bad for them.  But, from my experience, students can be trained to stay on task and honestly if they are not on their laptops they will be on a smaller screen (esp. in South Korea which is much better connected than the US) called a smartphone.

But I have created an e-sheet with some of the tips for better teaching for connected classrooms.  If you bookmark it (and I suggest Diigo), I will make changes as I figure them out.  For example, three weeks ago I started allowing quiet music (defined as the teacher can't hear it) to be played while the students are working on their work.  Since then productivity has gone up! 

Take My Integrating Technology Into the Classroom Course

Starting tomorrow (August 28th at 4 pm), if you work in Fairfax County, VA you can sign up to take my course called "Enhancing the Use of Technology In The Classroom."  It will be 10 weeks and give you 2 credits and will be offered on Thursdays from 4:30-7:30 pm.  It is course AC2310 and you will need to sign up in MyPLT.  

The course will cover things such as using Google Docs, Study Blue, Diigo (which is an online list of your favorites), Twitter, WeVideo (collaborative video), Fakebook, FakeTweet, integrating your e-book, creating webquests, mobile apps and more.  The class is also very practical as you will be using things we learn to make lesson plans to use during our class session (so we can work out the wrinkles).    

Personal Learning Networks

Two weeks ago I introduced my teacher-students to Twitter and the reasons why we should use Personal Learning Networks.  Here is a great Pinterest set of posts (not sure what to call this) on PLNs.  There are links to Google+ ones, lists of educator Twitter people to follow, using Diigo (which can be both a PLN as well as a place to put your links), flipped classroom teachers PLN, why you should have a PLN and much more. Eric Sheninger originally posted the link on my Google+ PLN. 

At least once a day I have to remember a password and login combination.  As hard as I might try to keep them similar many of the sites seem to have different requirements (first letter must be capital, one must be a number, etc.) and so I use delicious.com (others like diigo.com).  First off it is on the cloud so I can use it on any laptop.  Secondly if you save yours on your computer's browser, it can import them into it.  Next you can create folders.  You can also choose to lock the items so no one else can see them (good for the login/password combos) and if you want to share them, you can see who else is using the same site.  The advantage of this is that you might end up finding a whole host of new sites you never knew existed (and is one way I find new sites for this blog page).  If you want to see my unlocked items, go here.