Evernote & Diigo: 2 Web Resources for the Connected Educator

There are two Web 2.0 products I have found reason enough to purchase beyond the freemium versions: Evernote and Diigo. Both of these products figure prominently in my daily activities as a high school administrator. They are often two Web tools I open first thing every morning in preparation for my school day as a principal. Here's some of the ways I use each of these products in the course of my work day.

Evernote

I use Evernote, both Web and desktop verions. I also access and use it on my iPad and on my smartphone. It has become one of my primary administrator Web tools. Here's some of the ways I use it daily:

• To-Do List: I mentioned doing this in an earlier blog post, but I create a weekly To-Do List in my Evernote application for a few reasons. I make it weekly because so many of the tasks I face are a variety of both short-term and long-term tasks. With Evernote, I add more and more tasks as the week goes by, and for those tasks that don't get completed, it is a simple matter of copying and pasting in the next week's To-Do List at the beginning of the next week. I also can access my To-Do List anywhere through my phone or iPad.
• Administrators Log: I once had a seasoned administrator tell me, "If it ain't documented, then it didn't happen." My Administrators Log is my documentation tool for all the of the major incidents and tasks I have to tackle during the course of the day. With the tags features, I can make my documentation notes even more easily accessible, and because I have Evernote on all my devices, I can access these notes any where too.
• Resource Collection Box: At the end of the week, I send out an email newsletter to all my staff and to the parents. In that newsletter, I share resources and ideas on education. These resources and ideas are collected throughout the week in my Evernote Notebook entitled Weekly Email Update. By the end of the week, I usually have quite a few resources to share.

Evernote

Diigo

I've had a free Diigo account for over a year. It is such an excellent tool for collecting resources. Even the free version works well, But I have begun to collect more and more resources, and I wanted to be able to access those resources no matter what. I also wanted the added functionality of storing cached pages, screenshots, and unlimited images.  Without getting into all the details of explaining why being able to save more cached pages and being about use screen capture, here's the primary ways I'm using Diigo Premium as an administrator.

• Using Unlimited Cached Pages:  By having unlimited cached pages, I can upload entire pages into my Diigo account and not just links. This saves me from having to navigate through a maze of links and bookmarks. I can collect web resources and store cached versions of the Web pages. No worry about links and bookmarks not working.
• Using the Screen Capture and Annotation: This added premium feature allows me to take screenshots of web pages, annotate them, and upload them to my Diigo account. Another excellent Web resource collection tool. I can take a screenshot of a Web page, annotate it, and upload it to my Diigo account to use later.
• Using the Save Images from Web Pages: Many times I find images I want to share with other educators, With this feature, in Firefox and Internet Explorer, I can capture images and upload them to my Diigo account. This is quite useful when I discover images that I want to use in presentations or otherwise share.

Diigo

If there are two Web 2.0 programs I would advise every administrator learn to use, Evernote and Diigo are those two programs. If there are two Web 2.0 programs that are worth the premium price, I would again say that Evernote and Diigo are those two programs. Whether using the premium versions or not, these two programs are a must for a 21st century administrator, especially those administrators who are plugged in to the Web, and need a place to store resources.