Whether we like it or not, Google or Wikipedia are our student’s first ports of call when it comes to researching or undertaking independent study, not the school library. Diigo offers a fantastic way to tap into the way our students operate by allowing the annotation of web pages which can then be shared with your students and, by doing so, you facilitate the process of research for your students and you set them on the right track for further independent study.

What is Diigo?

Diigo is a social bookmarking service, very much like Delicious, but, unlike Delicious, Diigo allows you to write annotations and comments directly onto web pages which are then saved along with the bookmark. This is how Diigo describes itself:

Diigo is two services in one — it is a research and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other.

If you are new to the concept of social bookmarking and would like to find out more, then you should watch this video.

Diigo is very popular among teachers because it also offers educators the ability to create accounts for a whole class and it protects the students’ privacy. Click here for more information about Diigo Education. On this occasion, however, I am not using a whole class account. Instead, I am using the get annotated link facility which allows me to send my annotated page to anyone, whether they have signed up to Diigo or not. In this instance,  I used Edmodo to send the links to my student group:

The annotated pages which feature in the above picture can be viewed here and here. Hover over the highlighted sections to view my comments.

Why should I use Diigo?

As a long-time user of Delicious (I use the word user quite liberally – I didn’t use it much, I must admit), I was rather late to try out Diigo, as, in my mind, there was little difference between the two and I had already invested my time in bookmarking sites using Delicious. I then found out that Diigo could import all of my Delicious bookmarks (including tags) and that, in addition, Diigo could also automatically update my Delicious account whenever I bookmarked a site using Diigo. I’ll give it a go then, I thought.

It turned out that the most important factor for me was the ability to add commentary, or annotations, directly to web pages. Hang on a sec, I thought, this is ideal if I am asking my students to read an article from the internet: I can add comments, pearls of wisdom and I can highlight the most important and significant bits for them. Wow!

How do I annotate pages?

Diigo works best if you download a plugin for your browser which then allows you to bookmark and annotate web pages in an integrated manner, without the need to go to the Diigo website each time. This is what it looks like in my web browser:

Once you highlight a section of text, you can then annotate it with your own words of wisdom for yourself, as a self-reflection or research tool, or for your students or colleagues with whom you wish to share the links and annotations. If they have also signed up to Diigo, they can leave their own response comment on the page too!

Why should I annotate web pages for my students?

Many might argue that you are doing your students’ work for them by highlighting all the important bits and annotating them. And what is all this about using the internet, whatever happened to the good old book?

Well, I am facing facts: my students use Google and Wikipedia as a starting point. That is a fact. I, therefore, have a choice: I either go along with this and get them interested in researching my subject by offering them the opportunity to undertake guided independent study in a manner that they find preferable or I can insist they read books from the library and make notes… while they text on their mobiles… and update their Facebook profiles… and end up in Wikipedia anyway, via Google.

I don’t think I am doing the work for them. I think I am exploiting a new medium and making sure it is used appropriately and effectively. What do you think?

This post is tagged Diigo, Social bookmarking