Using Diigo to Help Students Manage Internet Research

Using Diigo to Help Students Manage Internet Research Presented by John “Charlie” Keene

What is Diigo? • Diigo is a social bookmarking service that allows users to keep an online catalogue of bookmarks • This allows users to access their saved bookmarks from any device with an internet connection • Diigo also provides a toolbar application, the Diigolet, that allows users to highlight text and put sticky notes on many webpages

What do Users Need in order to Use Diigo? • Internet access • An email address • A modern internet browser such as Chrome or Safari • Internet Explorer can cause issues, especially on the school desktop computers • A topic of interest

How do I Get Started with Diigo? • First, you will need to access the internet with a modern browser like Chrome or Safari • If your computer doesn’t have one of these options for a browser, you can download them by doing an internet search for the name of the browser. Follow the steps on the website • Once you are online, go to https://www.diigo.com

Getting Started with Diigo Continued • After the Diigo website loads, click “sign up” in the upper right-hand corner of the page; choose a free educator plan • You will be prompted to fill out a form to create a Diigo account • You can also create a Diigo account by signing in through a pre-existing account with Facebook, Twitter, Google, or Yahoo

Getting Started with Diigo Continued • After you have completed the form, you will be prompted to verify your email address by clicking a link in an email Diigo has sent to you • Open a new tab or browser window, access your email, and click on the link • Your account is now active, but you need to get the Diigolet in order to really start working

The Diigolet • The Diigolet is a toolbar add-on that allows you to interact with text on websites and add sites to your library with the click of a button • When you are signed in at Diigo.com, there will be a placeholder for your profile picture in the upper right-hand corner of the screen next to the button that says “Go Premium”; there is also a downward facing arrow • Place the mouse cursor over the placeholder and select “Tools” from the menu that drops down

The Diigolet Continued • The “Tools” page brings up many different add-ons and extensions that may be useful at a later date; for now we are only interested in the Diigolet • The Diigolet should be the very first option on the page in the section marked “Bookmarklets” • The page that opens should include directions for the browser that you use to open the page; if you need options for another browser, click on “Diigolet for other browsers…” in the lower right-hand corner of the screen

The Diigolet Continued • Follow the directions that appear on the screen • For Chrome or Safari, you will simply click and drag the button that says “Diigolet” up to your bookmark or toolbar, where it should stay as a bookmark • If your toolbar or bookmark bar does not show in Chrome, press “Command+Shift+B”

Using the Diigolet • Now that the Diigolet is in your bookmarks bar, click on it • A miniature toolbar will show up with several options for how you can interact with a web page • Note that you must click the Diigolet button each time you open a new page for the toolbar to appear

Using the Diigolet Continued • “Highlight” allows you to highlight text on a web page with your choice of four different colors • “Bookmark” adds the current page to your Diigo library; a dialog box will open prompting you to add a personal note about the page and to add “tags” to your bookmark (more on this later) • “Sticky Note” pops up a virtual sticky note on the page for you to make annotations; you can click and drag the sticky note around on the page

Using the Diigolet Continued • “Read Later” adds the current page to your library but designates it as a web page that is unread • You can view your unread items by clicking on the “Filter” button in your library and selecting “Unread” • “Share” allows you to post the webpage to a social media site or get an “annotated link” to post or send to someone. • An “annotated link” is a shortened form of the URL that you can post or send • Annotated links from Diigo include your highlights and sticky notes for others to see

Using the Diigolet Continued • “Diigo” drops down a menu that allows you to access different parts of your own Diigo account or sign out of Diigo • The “Hot Bookmark” option in this menu shows you webpages that are currently being frequently bookmarked by users; this is sort of the equivalent of something “trending” on Twitter • “Go Premium” is an option for you to pay to upgrade your account with more options

Bookmarking and Tagging • When you bookmark a page in Diigo, a dialog box comes up that asks you to provide more information about the page before adding it to your library • First, you have the option to change the title of the bookmark as it appears in your library, although the web page’s name is the default for this

Bookmarking and Tagging Continued • Underneath the title are four checkboxes that give you additional options for how to store and use the bookmarks: • “Private” – Checking this box means thatDiigowill not include this website from your library in searches that other users conduct; I recommend that you do not check this often • “Unread” – Checking this box means thatDiigowill add this to your library as an unread page

Bookmarking and Tagging Continued • Bookmark checkbox options continued: • “Upload Cache” – Checking this box means thatDiigo will save the current version of the web page in your library, and that you then may have access to old versions of the page • “Twitter this” – Checking this means that Diigo will automatically sent out a tweet with a link to this site if your twitter account is linked to Diigo

Bookmarking and Tagging Continued • There is a space for you to write a description of the page so that you can remember if there is particular information you need, etc. • Finally there is a space for you to include tags for the page

The Importance of Tagging • Tags are essentially key words associated with a web page that make it easier for others to find these websites when searching for specific information • Tag-based searches rely on user tags to determine if the search terms match the content of a website as determined by people, as opposed to searching how often the search terms show up on a given web page

The Importance of Tagging • Tagging is important for student research for several reasons: • Searching using tags allows students to find information that has been designated by other people as being related to a topic, making it easier for students to find relevant information on a topic • Tags can also help students to organize or search their Diigo library

The Importance of Tagging • Tagging is important for student research for several reasons: • Tagging and sharing websites allows students to collaborate with each other either directly on group projects • Ideally, stressing the importance of tagging will cause students to feel empowered to research topics of interest because they are able to authentically participate in a larger, global conversation about them

The Importance of Tagging • Recommended tags will always show up based on what tags other users have added to a site and based on the key words that show up often on the site • Adding a tag is easy: simply type in the key word or words that you think describe the site’s content and/or the words you think others will use to search for the site’s content • Diigo creates a new tag every time there is a space between words; to create a multiple word tag, simply enclose the phrase you want to add in quotation marks

Some Limitations of Using the Diigolet • The Diigolet does not work with many online resources such as academic databases or password-protected journals • The Diigolet will work with most but not all websites • The Diigolet may be very slow on older computers or with browsers like Internet Explorer

Trying it Out • Now that you are set up to use Diigo and the Diigolet, try it out on several websites • Try exploring websites that have to do with your personal interests, especially ones that contain information you will want to access again • Some sample topics: News/Current Events Recipes Sports Entertainment

Observations? • Please discuss the following questions with some of the people sitting near you: • What did you think of using Diigo? Was it easy to use? Did you think it would be helpful for personal or professional use? • What parts of Diigo were difficult or annoying to use? Are there any issues that you think would also be problematic for students? • What possible applications of Diigo can you see in your classroom? For what purposes do you think it would work best?

Editing Bookmarks • You can edit your bookmarks by placing the curser near the name of the bookmark in your library • A series of symbols will appear on the right-hand side of the screen on the same line as the bookmark’s name • Place the curser over the symbol to find out what each one does. The options are to preview, edit, delete, or send the bookmark to someone

Using Diigo to Help Students Manage Internet Research