Diigo in Education

When working on an assignment for a class that I'm taking, I had the opportunity to explore Diigo. Diigo is a tool that helps save, annotate, and bookmark websites. Diigo also allows you to share your bookmarks with others. As a student taking graduate classes, this resource is perfect for researching, taking notes, and outlining the resources. However, this resource could be used for many ways in the classroom as well!

I found this great video that helps describe different ways to use Diigo in the classroom.

Here are a couple ways I will be using it in my classroom:


1. Using Diigo for Genius Hour

In my own classroom students have been working on a genius hour project. I thought Diigo would be a great way to check in with students. I created a group within Diigo, so students can share the articles they have come across for their driving question. Also, Diigo is a great tool for them to highlight and annotate the articles.

2. Supporting a claim and using text evidence
I am always looking for ways students can find articles to help support a claim they are making, and share their resources with me. Diigo is a great tool for students sharing their resources they are using, but also highlight the text evidence that helps them create a paper or support a claim.



3. Group Projects
Students will be able to easily share resources through Diigo for group projects. Also, no matter the computer or tablet they are on, they are able to see their bookmarks!

If you haven't explored Diigo yet, give it a try!

Professional Development Through Blogging Using Feedly

My school district provides us with many opportunities for professional development throughout the year. We are able to collaborate with other teachers in the district, attend Edcamps, and read new books together. I am so lucky I have this opportunity to share the lifelong learning culture with coworkers. However, sometimes the best professional development I am provided with is through blogs! Blogging is a great tool to learn new ideas, activities, and innovative methods for the classroom.

Reading blogs can be time consuming especially if you have to type in each url to find your favorites. There is a perfect tool to have all of your blogs in one place. It is called Feedly! Feedly allows you to follow any blogs you want, and it stores them all in one place. You can categorize the blogs into the different categories you enjoy. It updates and lets you know the ones you have read and haven't read. Another feature is the search option, you can search for different topics, or you can search for a topic in only the blogs you follow. I recommend Feedly to any user of blogs. It is an efficient way to use Blogging to help manage your time especially if you are an educator like me! 

Here is a great video to help you get started with your own Feedly account. 

Several blogs I follow on Feedly are:

1. The Innovative Educator

2. Mindshift

3. Teachthought