Go Diigo Go...

I have finally taken the leap and have currently created a Diigo account.

Why create a Diigo account if you're an avid Delicious user?

I have used Delicious personally for 3 years and have used this with my students for 2 years. Everything was relatively easy till they required the use of a YAHOO account for new users. Having students create the account was too much for me. Much like a Google account; there are a lot of other sites the students automatically receive when they sign-up with YAHOO.

I have been a bit disillusioned with Delicious and have been reluctant to sign-up and start again with something new. I miss using social bookmarking with my students so I've decided to try out Diigo!

Much to my surprise when I visited the site I can get a free educator account! WhoooHoooo (ok time to put the propeller hat on again) I'll blog again on this when I have a chance to really 'play' with Diigo.

Go Diigo Go!

My love affair with RSS

I was first introduced to RSS feeds during a presentation by David Warlick at the Leading and Learning conference. It was one of those spine tingling moments that literally made the hair on my arms stand up. This presentation helped me truly understand the power of technology to bring the information to me.

It is really difficult to explain the excitement I had when I left that room that day, but it returns every time I have the opportunity to talk about RSS to someone. Personally, I use RSS in two distinct ways:

1. for professional/personal development
2. to streamline class room activities.

I follow nearly 400 people on Twitter. It seems that when I follow one person it quickly leads to another person... and so on... Of those 400 people most are somehow related to the education field. Some of the people are highly entertaining, some are very intellectual, but they all share a willingness to take me on their learning journey. Most of these people have blogs, which you can see on their Twitter profile page. I often follow these links and I scan/read their blogs. Those that somehow connect to me I add to my Google Reader; a task that takes less than 30 seconds! Whenever those people now make a blog post I can see it and read it in my reader, I can also share it with those that I follow in Google. To be able to see and read all this information that is relevant to me has profoundly changed me.

The second way I use RSS feeds is to follow certain searches. Now following my name on a Google search is a rather pointless exercise for me, since their is another family within Canada that shares my family name (see earlier post). However, I do follow many other search feeds. For current events, I'll follow several feeds (usually using Google News searches) related to a topic I'm covering in my Social Studies classes. These feeds are organized on my Igoogle page. Its very easy to put up on the Smartboard and the students can see the information as it comes. It would be just as easy to use a service like Pageflakes. I have also used it to follow and do collaborative searching using Delicious. Using delicious I would get the students to use a common tag when searching. I would then do a search in Delicious for the specific tag (make sure its a unique tag) and follow that feed. I could then follow how my students were sharing and researching in "REAL TIME".

....love is in the air....

Student Learning Networks

I consider myself a professional learner. This infectious and often overwhelming desire to know everything and have an opinion on it probably best describes me. So, I call myself a professional learner and behind closed doors I do call myself an "info junkie".

I did not even know this term was real until I did a "Google search". My wife wonders why I would even consider searching the term. This question probably puts the process I go through in context. Therefore, I spend my time near the computer doing searches and reading. Over the last summer I discovered Google Reader and suddenly a whole waft of information is now streaming my way. Much of this info was so over my head and was coming in such vast quantities it was like channel surfing a 1000 channels at the same time. Apparently I checked a whole bunch of interest boxes and voila I had 2000 things to read the 1st day! Then this last November during the Leading and Learning Conference, I attended the David Warlick presentation on RSS. Warlick used a term describing teachers as "Master Learners"! I thought, "That's me!"

The Light bulb went off... I could bring control to my information universe! I could control the info coming to me; I could shape my learning. I could learn what I wanted and I began creating my "Personal Learning Network"! I couldn't wait to get back to the classroom and start sharing what I learned. Yes, I revealed a level of geekiness to my Junior High students that I never thought possible. I stood in front of the, class and announced, "I am a propellorhead!" Well, technically I didn't, but it was pretty close; some did ask is that all you do.

As I continue to teach this year I am going to focus my energies on helping the students create their "Student Learning Networks". How can they learn more efficiently, how can they learn to love learning and how can they create their own "Personal Learning Network"!