In a previous posting, I described using Diigo to increase students’ metacognitive skills. Since Diigo’s recently enhanced its offerings, I thought I’d take the opportunity to provide a brief how-to video to show you how you can use Diigo’s features to help students become better intentional learners.
For a Screencast.com version of the video (which will allow you to access a larger screen), click the link below.
Organizing and annotating makes for active reading
Diigo offers a platform that helps learners to make sense of information as they aggregate it. By installing the Diigo toolbar, learners get access to tools that help them organize Web resources and are able to comment and reflect on these resources at the same time. Learners also can view comments that others have made. Information can be highlighted by using the highlighter tool to select text and learners can post thoughts on movable sticky notes. With the newest version of Diigo, learners can even take screenshots of regions of a Web page, make notes on the image, and save it along with their bookmarked information. By using Diigo’s annotation features, learners can get into the habit of considering the applications of what they’re reading.
Collaboration features for problem-based learning
Diigo’s collaboration features also allow learners to tap into communities of interests. By joining Groups, learners gain access to shared bookmarked pages and can see how others have annotated their Web pages. Learners can add their own comments and share pages as well. Instructors can create groups and control access to these groups for collaboration or class projects (for example, problem-based learning challenges) involving smaller groups of people.
Diigo’s also amenable for mobile learning applications since it offers tools for use on the iPhone, iPad Safari, and Android.