Diigo Versus Delicious: The battle is on.

Diigo and del.icio.us are both bookmarking tools that help you easily organize and save different websites by using a tagging system.  They also let you retrieve these bookmarked sites no matter which computer you are on, which works great for people like me that use multiple different computers a day.  The way the tools organize, tag, and share seem to be about the same with both tools.  One big difference that I have found, however, is that Diigo seems to have more cools tools besides just tagging.  I love that Diigo has a highlighter, sticky note, and shape maker option and what makes it even cooler is that all the things you do actually stay on the site.  Diigo also lets you archive a site so that if you really liked it you could save it just as it is and you know it will always be there.  I actually created an account with Diigo and applied for the free educators upgrade and received it by the next day.  I haven’t fully investigated all its uses, but I think it would be a really great tool for students who are doing research on the web.  Not only can they take their notes on the web page, but it can also be shared with you so you can actually monitor their progress and give them tips and ideas.  As for del.icio.us I really liked it when I was using it, but now that I have seen all the Diigo can do I will most likely use Diigo full-time (outside of this class) I am amazed at what types of things are out there that I had no idea even existed. 

 I really wish that I was able to download Diigo to my school computer so that I could start tagging, organizing, and sharing my on-line resources TODAY.  At my school our computers are frozen so anytime I download something it disappears the when I shut down.  There have been several times that I have been thinking of an activity and then I have to spend my prep period searching for the darn site that I got the activity or idea from.  I had this tool at school I could tag it (for example  Algebra II GraphingQuadratics worksheet generator) and then I could start compiling my resources and save myself a large amount of time.  This tool would have been great to have last year because I found a really cool math website and now I can’t remember what it was and haven’t been back to in since.  I think I will be getting my IT guy down to my room ASAP so that he can download it for me. 

I really think that I am going to have my Honors Algebra II class do a research project about a famous mathematician of their choice and Diigo would be perfect for them to do this.  I was also thinking of having my Algebra I students doing research on the use of mathematics in the real world.  They could bookmark their sites, tag them, and then take notes using just one tool.  How cool is that?  Diigo is like the modern day notecard method of doing research.