Digging into Diigo

Diigo is promoted as a “personal knowledge management” tool that helps us in managing online information (Diigo, Inc., 2013). With these features, Diigo’s free services have become the favourite among the teachers in our institution:

• Personal Assistant Tool – Users can bookmark a website for future use; use the highlighter to mark important ideas; and use the sticky notes to put comments. All of the highlighted parts and sticky notes in the bookmarked webpage are saved in the Diigo account. Hence, the users can build up their own online collection.
• Flexibility – Diigo toolbar or Diigolet is compatible with different web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE) and mobile apps (both Android and IOS phones).
• Supports collaboration and sharing – Users can create their own workgroup to work with annotations or bookmarked webpages. Diigo communities, RSS feeds, blogs, twitters and emails can also be used to share online information. Users can also mark their collection either for public or private use only. With its new education edition, teachers can create a class account and students can work in groups.
• Easy to organize – Users can use tags or create lists to organize their online collection. This also helps in searching within the collection as it gets bigger.

Evaluation:

As Diigo is compatible with a wide variety of apps, users can access their Diigo account anytime and anywhere. Its collaboration and sharing features make it easy for users of the same company, group or interests to connect or work with each other. Companies can use this as a communication tool for their projects, especially if their employees are in different locations or from different departments. Teachers can facilitate online learning by sharing resources to Diigo class account where students can discuss their thoughts using the highlighter and sticky notes. Librarians can use Diigo as a reference tool or subject guides for lists of resources available to students and teachers. Although Diigo did not mention the limit of bookmarks/highlights or the quantity of storage space they give for the free account, Diigo is indeed living up with its branding as a knowledge management tool.

Reference:

Diigo, Inc. (2013). About Diigo. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from Diigo: https://www.diigo.com/about