Cult of Pedagogy ROCKS Diigo Tutorial for Education

Wow!!!  I just found a trilogy of YouTube videos done by the Cult of Pedagogy that do an awesome job of giving educators an introduction to Diigo.    This is an endeavor by Jennifer Gonzalez who proclaims "Teacher Nerds, UNITE!!!"

Do you use Diigo?  I have for many years for personal use, but I don't think that I ever really appreciated what I could do with my students. Yes, I have taught about various tagging strategies et al, but I didn't really "get it." Having watched Jennifer's videos on Diigo, I am further along the journey now.  

I know that Diigo has their own tutorials, but they seem to be more interested in selling the product by overwhelming you with all of the bells and whistles rather than providing us with useable instructions.

Tutorial Trilogy
This 7-minute video provides an introduction to using Diigo to research.  She takes you through the sign-on process. She does a good job of showing us how to bookmark a site. It's quick and easy.  She even shows how you can include a highlight and sticky note in your newly discovered website. I like that her demonstrations are well planned and not too entailed. I like how she shows you how to add links to a list and how to organize them once they are there. The only piece that could have been improved would have been to spend a little time showing newbees how to add the Diigo apps (Diigolet, etc) to your browser. 

Part 2 of this trilogy is an important video. It shows how to use Diigo Groups to engage in online collaboration.  This is quite valuable in your classes. She shows how students can join Diigo Groups that are relevant to what they are studying (i.e., Hamlet). As students research, they can Diigo-mark a site and then share it with their group. (i.e, student finds an analysis if Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy, Diigo-marks it and then adds it to the Hamlet group so that the other students have access.) She even explains how this can be the basis of an on-going, online discussion between the students on specific topics concerning Hamlet.

  

 The final episode of this trilogy is unique because it explains how teachers can use the special classroom organization tools that are available through a free Educator Diigo upgrade. She tells you how to upgrade your account to an educator status and then how to use those tools.  She demonstrates how educators can use the Teacher Console create student accounts and organize them in groups. This system has a strong privacy system that will protect student's identities. I haven't seen this demonstrated before and found this quite informative.

  

How are you using Diigo?  Are you using it to support your students doing collaborative research?  If you don't think that you are doing it "justice",  review these videos and  forge ahead.

Please share how you use Diigo or how you envision it making a difference in your learning environment.