To give a little background before I begin my
blog to anyone that isn't part of "Learning for Success" at Brock,
this week we learned about various online tools that can be used to improve the
usability and overall effectiveness of the internet. Among the new tools that
we discovered this week was an advanced bookmarking tool called Diigo, which
allows the user to highlight, add sticky notes, and bookmark web pages with
ease among other things. Diigo shows up as a toolbar in the web browser and
easily organizes all of a person's highlighted material on the website under a
free account. After creating an account on Diigo, I found that the first thing
that I noticed was the ease of use as all of the options previously mentioned
were clearly shown across the toolbar. This simplicity makes it a user-friendly
application, which obviously pleases user and will make them more likely to
upgrade to full versions. The ability for the bookmarks and user mark-ups to
transfer between devices is another reason that Diigo is a great application as
most people now use multiple computers or a tablet. Using these tools will be a
great help to educational activities, as it will allow me to keep track of websites
and even highlight certain pieces of information that is particularly
important. For anyone interested in trying Diigo out, there is a four step
guide to getting the proper setup:
Valid and reliable online bookmarks are one of
the most important contributing factors to building and conveying knowledge.
Finding scholarly websites is critical to building knowledge because the
materials in these articles are proven and referenced as opposed to many sites
on the internet where the information may not be completely true. Being able to
highlight and keep track of these valid sources of information can increase
knowledge and communication of the knowledge dramatically.
The second item of investigation this week was
various curation tools. There were several options of different curation tools,
each of which we did a little bit of research on, but there was one in
particular that I found would be useful. It is called "Google Alerts"
and it basically allows you to enter in certain words or phrases using your
Google account that you would like to receive notifications when they are used.
You can enter anything from your name, to your email, to a topic that you are
looking for recent news on and you will receive notifications when it is
mentioned. This could be a great tool to use when you are looking for something
that is currently happening in the news to build your understanding of the
topic, probably long before others hear about it.
If I were to update my PLE (see previous blog
on Personal Learning Environment), the bookmarking tool that we learned about
this week would fit in the "convenience" section of the diagram. The
explanation is fairly straightforward as this application is obviously meant to
provide an easy way for users to keep track important websites and information
in one place. The curation tool could be classified in two different locations
on the PLE. I would put Google Alerts between the "connect" and
"convenience" sections of the diagram. It allows the user to input
the keywords that they want to "follow" and connects them to the
entire internet by sending notifications, which also makes it a convenient tool
because the user doesn't have to constantly look up the terms online.
After learning about these new tools, I
decided to look on Feedly to find a RSS feed that gives tips on Diigo. I found
out that Diigo has its own feed and it had a lot of great tips for using the
tool. There is a tutorial that I found helpful with learning the application so
I figured I would share it on my blog:
Just as a final note, this week we also tried out being an “internet
detective” which was basically learning about internet safety in a fun and
creative way.
Thanks for reading and good luck with your newly found
applications!Diigo Setup
Austin - I just wanted to also touch on Google Alerts. I came across this web 2.0 tool about a week ago, with my friend Mitch. Ever since, I have been immersed in new information (mostly world news and sports highlights). In terms as where this would go in my Personal Learning Environment, I would have considered this to go under "Aggregate." This is because Google Alerts is just that, an aggregator.
ReplyDeleteJust as a side note, great find on that PDF annotating with Diigo!
Until next time.