Diigo Social Bookmarking and Note Taking is simmering ...

Last week we had a workshop on what I called "Online Collaborative Resources Database".  That is a pretty big name for "social bookmarking".  But the purpose of that big name was to highlight the features of the tool instead of the tool. As it collects bookmarks, notes, images, it becomes a database of resources for a group of people connected to this database. As it is online, it can be accessed anytime anywhere (better than computer-based bookmarks or favorites).  As it allows collaboration, it fosters a great 21st century skill. On top of all that, Diigo allows for collaborative highlighting of bookmarked webpages.

Last year, History Internal Assessment experimented with Diigo as a resource database for students. The idea was for each student to add to Diigo bookmarks as they found a good resource, attaching a short note on what the resource was about and tagging it to facilitate later reference. Tagging as a group required students to be mindful of what their peers were doing. So if anyone used the tag "WWII", the next one using this topic had to utilize exact same tag. This process of group tagging is called folksonomy.
After last week's workshop, Amaral will explore using Diigo for collective note taking, and it will be interesting to see how students get organized and collaborate in such an environment, and how they use collective notes. Shormila is considering using Diigo to eliminate paper in pre-class reading assignments. With Diigo, she can easily go around the class and check readings with highlights, that can be shared with her by the students.
Diigo is also perfect for our own bookmarks organization. Now I have all my bookmarks on Diigo.  As you are searching on the web and find an interesting article, you can highlight what you find important and keep that on Diigo. You can also use Diigo for your Department, so the contributions of each teacher can generate a richer resources database.