Diigo

When doing any kind of research, or writing any papers, I am really big on pulling out different coloured pens and highlighters, and writing everything down. I like to think that my grade 3 teacher knew what she was talking about when she would make us do a bunch of prewriting, and outlines in elementary school when starting to write essays. Throughout high school I did most of my research and pre-writing online, but could never really get into what I was writing. My first year of University I discovered that this was the best way for me to get my assignments done, and I really enjoy it. This was, until I discovered Diigo. Diigo allows me to
do everything I would want to do on paper- mostly adding sticky notes and highlights. It is very simple to use, and it is a great help when trying to organize interesting and helpful information! Since Diigo is somewhat of an online community, others are able to filter content, so when searching for information, you are more likely to come across quality! Personally, I've been bookmarking constantly for the last few weeks- pretty much everytime I see something I wouldn't mind looking at again. For Ecmp in particular, I found that by bookmarking all of my classmates' blogs, it is so much easier to find, and a lot easier to find exactly who I am looking for, instead of getting lost in the endless bookmarks I have acquired on my firefox browser.
Last semester I was introduced to Delicious, which I couldn't really get into, and although they are similar programs, Diigo is like the suped-up version. It is really interesting to see what others have to say about things that interest you, by reading their sticky notes. This is a tool I've found myself playing around with for a while.
I can definitely see myself using this in future classrooms, and I would actually feel a lot safer allowing my students to do their research through websites that others have already read through and rated. The sticky notes allow students to have online discussions about certain topics, which I feel could be a great project in the classroom. There are a lot of possibilities using this tool, and I'm excited to learn more about it.
I'm really into DIY projects, which can really be turned into crafts very easily. I have been searching for projects that I would like to try out myself, and by bookmarking them to Diigo and using tags such as "projects" "crafts" "diy" "Christmas" "Ideas" etc, it will be very easy for me to find these projects if I wish to try them out in my elementary classroom one day! :)
I would love to see more people using Diigo, so I may add them to my contact pages. If there are enough of us bookmarking projects and cool information, we could go a very long way in collaborative projects for education.