Install the Diigo Toolbar

I went to Will Richardson's session at the Midwest Education Technology Conference (METC) in St. Charles, Missouri, in ’09. During his presentation about teaching students to use web 2.0 tools, he clicked over to a website, found something interesting, and saved the link to a social bookmarking site. It took him less than 1 second. Probably most people didn't even notice that he did it, but to me it was one of the stand out moments of the conference. What a great tool! To be able to spot something on the web, store it to read later, keep it as a reference, and to do it so effortlessly!
 
One key to to storing links on my favorite bookmarking site, Diigo, is the "toolbar" that you install in the browser of your choice. With the toolbar, you can save a site with a single click. 

If you have more than a nanosecond, a second click brings up the edit box. Here you can add a description of the site if you wish, but more importantly, add tags. Tags are keywords that will help you—and others—find this site among the bookmarks. Installing it is easy, as you see in my video. Click on the symbol with the 4 arrows, bottom right, if you'd like to view it full screen.
  
The toolbar includes many more functions that I'll be posting about later, as well as demonstrating at one of the breakout sessions at this year's METC: "Transforming Research Assignments with Diigo Social Bookmarks," Wed., Feb. 16 at 1:00. It's the Swiss army knife of the Internet!

Sharing links with Diigo

Ever wanted to share something? AMcC

Did you ever need to share a link with your class, team mates, or friends? Picture a teacher with a class of 1st graders. "Boys and girls, just go up to the box at the top and type in http://…" Not gonna happen. Of course, you can bookmark the link in the browser. For every computer your students ever use. Not.

Making a weblock

If you have a program such as Apple Remote Desktop, you can make a weblock and blast it to any or all computers. Great if you have the software, but it will only remain there till someone deletes it. Not a permanent link.

Like other bookmarking services, such as Delicious and I Keep Bookmarks, Diigo will store your bookmarks online, where students can search them. More about searching in my next post.
Need to share with colleagues? Diigo and Delicious both offer a way to email a link right from the website, without having to switch your email program. Diigo is easier and more versatile.

From the Share > Send to menu