Major Project: Someone asked if Diigo is better than Pearl Trees. Here’s what I had to say.

   by  cogdogblog 

Someone asked if Diigo is better than Pearl Trees.  Here’s what I had to say. 

The answer is they are both great social bookmarking tools.  I think they are both reliable and do similar things.  It depends on which one you are most comfortable with.  I had no experience with either of these tools.  So, I chose Diigo because my Professor, Alec Couros suggested it and once I started using it, I felt very comfortable with the tool.  I did watch some videos on Pearl Trees and it looked good as well.  When I started using Diigo, it was easy to bookmark things of interest to me and Diigo provided me with a free teacher account with free storage, I started using it and never looked elsewhere.  Research on Google had the two rated very similar. 

Here are some of the functions that I really like:

1)     I liked it because it was easy to login and use.  I was able to save, bookmark, share and annotate documents directly from your browser and they are stored in a list on your diigo page. For example, I can highlight portions of the page and even put a sticky note on the page!  A recent upgrade allows for annotation on PDF’s which is a handy feature in my work and as a student going to university!    

2)     I like the screen capture option which you can save independently or attach it to the specific webpage.

3)     I applied for a teacher account and within a couple of days, I was given access to a lot more  storage space - all free!  As a classroom teacher, I can add student names (email addresses or Diigo accounts not required).  As a coordinator, I can invite other teachers to one of my Groups.  The one I created is called, “Mr. B’s Special Education Resource Library”.  https://groups.diigo.com/group/mr-bs-special_education_resources_fiap-vap-dc-and-slc

4)     My library can be shared privately with people I invite or I can make it open to the public.  Other professionals can look at my resources and they can even add some to my page.  As the only person who has Administrative rights to the account, I can control who or what is posted and if I want to exclude someone, I have the ability to do so.  It’s easy to add tags so you can search for topics more easily and add comments on links as well!

5)     Organizing my topics and/or research directly into my folders or Lists as they call them is simple and it has the feature of “tagging” items so that they are more easily searchable. 

 

6)     Now, this is all wonderful but would you believe that Diigo can actually expand your Professional Learning Network too?  Well, I found over 1000 different links to different groups.  If you are new to developing my PLN, this is a great place to start!  I was so pleased to be able to find other Special Educators all in one location!  Here are the 4 that I have decided to follow for now!  I’m so excited to be a part of their network and look forward to expanding mine! 

a.     AT in SPED - https://groups.diigo.com/group/at-in-sped : A group geared toward finding and sharing information about AAC research, communication and Assistive Technology.

b.    Technology for Special Education - https://groups.diigo.com/group/aac-in-special-education

c.    Special Ed in the 21st Century - https://groups.diigo.com/group/special-ed-in-the-21st-century  No Child Left Behind? Web 2.0 can be an outlet for these often 'Left Behind' voices. Resource supplement for a Ning network with the same name: http://21stcenturysped.ning.com/

d.    Diigo In Education  https://groups.diigo.com/group/diigoineducation

7)      Hot Bookmarks from the Library are listed under the “Community” link.  This has been so helpful for me in this class because I can search by interest (e.g. special educators) and it provides me with a list of interesting articles!  I have been able to search areas of interest and save them to my library but also tweet out the interesting articles.  At the beginning of this class, I would always wonder where fellow classmates would find such interesting articles!  Wow, this only took me until November!!