Digging in to Diigo: Research and Annotation on the Go (1)
From Study Routines to Research Skills: Deciding on Diigo
Let’s be honest, coming up with a Digital Humanities Action Research Project was not going to be a problem for me. I’m the “tech guy.” Whether that particular appellation is appropriate or not I shall leave for others to decide, but it is, at least in part, true. I love new toys, especially when they are electronic and are connected to the Internet. The old adage is true that all that really changes as boys grow older is their toys get bigger (with more power, thank you Tim Allen) or more expensive.
I delved into our first semester of Digi Hum with characteristic abandon. Oh, Prezi looks cool let me check that out. Okay, done, what’s next? Oh, I like Evernote, great place to write blogs and keep notes stored in the ubiquitous cloud. That’s fun, let me keep using that, but what’s next? Word Clouds, well they seem nice but… oh wait there’s a website called Tagxedo and I can turn word clouds into different shapes! Count me in [Apologizes for that insight into my inner monologue, he can be quite a wordy fellow with very little appreciate for complete sentences].
So the real problem was not going to be what digital toy or tool to select, but could I possible narrow it down to just ONE tool and then of course connect it to something, some driving question or need. I decided the tool, okay tools, I was most interested in using in the classroom were Diigo and Evernote. I quote from my proposal: “It seems that while providing some hooks into developing study and note-taking skills are evident, there is still room for students to grow in this area, and there are tools available online which may aid in their digital literacy as well as in their study and organizational skills using other forms of technology (i.e. – pen and ink).”
My original aim then was to use these tools to augment and improve student’s abilities to understand text, take notes and summarize and then transfer those same techniques back to the pen and paper forms. I am nothing if not bold and entrepreneurial in my thinking. It was pretty much doomed to fail from the beginning, but not unlike the phoenix something new and different and yet eerily familiar rose from the ashes and took shape: Diigo as research tool. It is by far a simpler way of talking about the same concern and issue, while also maintain much of the focus of the original thought and driving question: In what ways may student learning be augmented and improved through the development of better organizational and study skills? However, before I get to the phoenix arising anew it is important to consider the context of the school and the students.
Unorthodox History 
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