Social Bookmarking and saving things to a cloud is quickly emerging as the way to be an efficient digital citizen. When utilizing these tools, you eliminate the fear of having to "back-up" constantly, and you can access your files on any computer with internet access. A few years ago I was introduced to Pinterest in college. Immediately, I fell in love. Pinterest became the easiest and most engaging way for me to find new recipes, hairstyles, and even plan the majority of my wedding. Now that I am a teacher, I am frequently using it to see what other teachers are doing to help students learn in their classroom.
Recently, I have learned about two other social bookmarking tools called, Diigo and Delicious. At first, I was not sure how these could compete with my beloved Pinterest. When I first signed up for both of these sites, I was surprised that they were not as flashy as I had expected. There were no visuals, just links. I began to wonder how these would fit into what I strive to accomplish as a teacher.
Just as I was beginning to give up hope on using these sites; I watched an informative video on Diigo. This video really explained how Diigo allows users to annotate on webpages. I was really captivated by this unique feature. I see this tool very helpful to people who are doing more academic things, such as, a capstone or dissertation. I love that it allows you to annotate on the text. I read approximately 300 pages of information a week. It is extremely difficult to keep all the content organized by the title. Once I can see my annotations, it is easier for me to recall the details of the articles.
Delicious is also a more professional site. I enjoyed browsing it because it had a plethora of information about technology education. I also found both Delicious and Diigo to be less distracting than Pinterest. What had at first made me want to deter from using the Web 2.0 tools is, in fact, what allowed me to stay focused while I was on them. For academic purposes, the simplicity of these sites is what makes the most effective. It is the complete opposite for Pinterest. I get on to find an engaging activity for my students, but instead I find ten recipes I would like to try for dinner.
Overall, I believe that both of these tools can allow professional people to organize and store research in an effective way. I also like how it is a permanent place to keep it and does not clog a flash drive or your hard drive. Saving work on a cloud like this is becoming the most efficient way to make sure you have access to your work in any place. All of these factors make these tools very useful to teachers who desire to connect and collaborate with other educators by using research.
Recently, I have learned about two other social bookmarking tools called, Diigo and Delicious. At first, I was not sure how these could compete with my beloved Pinterest. When I first signed up for both of these sites, I was surprised that they were not as flashy as I had expected. There were no visuals, just links. I began to wonder how these would fit into what I strive to accomplish as a teacher.
Just as I was beginning to give up hope on using these sites; I watched an informative video on Diigo. This video really explained how Diigo allows users to annotate on webpages. I was really captivated by this unique feature. I see this tool very helpful to people who are doing more academic things, such as, a capstone or dissertation. I love that it allows you to annotate on the text. I read approximately 300 pages of information a week. It is extremely difficult to keep all the content organized by the title. Once I can see my annotations, it is easier for me to recall the details of the articles.
Delicious is also a more professional site. I enjoyed browsing it because it had a plethora of information about technology education. I also found both Delicious and Diigo to be less distracting than Pinterest. What had at first made me want to deter from using the Web 2.0 tools is, in fact, what allowed me to stay focused while I was on them. For academic purposes, the simplicity of these sites is what makes the most effective. It is the complete opposite for Pinterest. I get on to find an engaging activity for my students, but instead I find ten recipes I would like to try for dinner.
Overall, I believe that both of these tools can allow professional people to organize and store research in an effective way. I also like how it is a permanent place to keep it and does not clog a flash drive or your hard drive. Saving work on a cloud like this is becoming the most efficient way to make sure you have access to your work in any place. All of these factors make these tools very useful to teachers who desire to connect and collaborate with other educators by using research.