21st Century Administrator Experiments with Diigo

Diigo is one of the those Web 2.0 social networking tools that I have not gotten around to finding a way to use yet. I have looked at some of the Web 2.0 activities suggested by blog posts, but as with any tool, I needed to just sit down and "play" with the tool to see how I might use it in my administrative practice. I have found some interesting 21st century administrator uses for the tool, and I will keep exploring ways to expand its use.

Setting Up Your Diigo Account

Setting up an account is rather easy, like it is for most Web 2.0 tools. All you need to do is access Diigo at:

http://www.diigo.com.

Using Diigo's Chrome Extension

Google Chrome is my browser of choice, so I installed the Google Chrome Diigo extension.You can access that extension here.

Once that extension is installed, I have a button on my browser bar, that when clicked on, a toolbar for Diigo tools appears for easy access of the Highlighter Tool, Bookmark Tool, Sticky Note Tool, and the Share Tool. This extension allows me to access Diigo's tools at the click of a button.

Diigo Chrome Extension

Uses I Have Found for Diigo

I have only been working with Diigo for a few days, but I have already discovered a few uses for the product. I have incorporated its use in the products I use as a part of my personal learning network.

1. Use Diigo to annotate and mark interesting ideas, quotes, thoughts, or other information stumbled across while reading articles in my Google Reader. In the past, I found myself copying and pasting them into my Microsoft Onenote program, or into a MS Word file. Diigo allows me to clip these items and place them into categories for easier access.
2. Use Diigo to organize notes and clips into categories. Because Diigo allows you to set up custom categories, I can create categories that I need, and then I just place items in those as I find them. Because Diigo hyperlinks back to the original, I can access the entire article any time I need to do so.
3. Use Diigo's highlight feature and the sticky note feature to write quick notes about the text. The sticky note feature allows me attach notes to the text of an article for later reference.
4. Sharing Diigo Clips. I have not fully taken advantage of this one yet, but I see the possibilities. I have shared clips using Twitter, but you can also share clips of text using email and other social networking tools. I can see myself stumbling across an interesting idea that I want to share with my teachers, and then using Diigo's sharing feature to send the information out to them.
5. Other Uses as I find them. I am sure I will find even more uses for the tool in the coming days.

Accessing Your Clips with My Library Page

Once items are highlighted, they are then placed in what is known as "My Library." From there, using multiple view choices, you can read and access all of the items you have clipped from web sites. You can also make the items public or private, group them into categories, read snapshots of the web page, among other things.

My Library in Diigo

At this point, I am still experimenting with Diigo's functionality and features. It has already shown promise in becoming a tool to help me collect all these things from my web reading. In the coming months I hope to take advantage of the sharing feature even more.