Technological Product Assessment

Jennifer L. Thoman

Wilkes University

The product I’ve chosen to assess is Diigo. Diigo is an acronym for Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff. The website was launched on July 24, 2006. There are many features of Diigo. According to Crunchbase, Diigo

“allows signed users to bookmark and tag web-pages. More exclusively, it allows users to highlight any part of a webpage and attach sticky notes to specific highlights or to a whole page. These annotations can be kept private, shared with a group within Diigo or a special link forwarded to someone else. Diigo provides rich tagging capability as well as folders for better information organization, and group annotation for better collaboration. Diigo automatically caches the page so it is always available to you. Diigo allows you to search the full-text of your collections, or just within your highlights. Diigo allows you to easily extract your research findings or publish them to blog” (Diigo | CrunchBase Profile)

Diigo is especially helpful because you can access your bookmarks from any computer, unlike just hitting the favorite button on your home computer. I found a cool chart online (Information Technology at Purdue) that I think shows these benefits:

So how can Diigo be used to enhance globalization? I guess I think Diigo is a great stepping stone to many other technologies. One example would be Skype. With our economic status being what it is, virtual field trips are becoming more and more utilized. Diigo could be the tool that provides the foreground. Students from around the world can “meet” at the site and share information. This information could be tagged and highlighted showing what till be discussed during the Skype session. For example, if a school in the States wanted to talk with a school in Japan about the recent issues facing the Japanese, a group could be formed in Diigo. Students from Japan and the States could find information pertaining to earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear power plants. They would have access to the same information and would be able to discuss it intelligently when meeting. Students would have the ability to see life in other places and understand the way things are being outsourced.

Last week we did lesson plans on globalization. Diigo could be used to organize sites the students have found that show globalization. They would also be able to access their work at home and keep up with their assignments, helping them to become better students. One of the cool things is that they can easily share what they are learning with their family.

By finding already established group on Diigo, students would start to understand the concept of networking with others and how that is useful in the world of work.

In short, Diigo is a great Web 2.0 tool that will help enhance the education of our students.

References

Diigo | CrunchBase Profile. (n.d.). CrunchBase, The Free Tech Company Database. Retrieved April 17, 2011, from http://www.crunchbase.com/company/diigo

Information Technology at Purdue. (n.d.). Purdue University. Retrieved April 15, 2011, from https://wiki.itap.purdue.edu/display/INSITE/Diigo#Diigo-GettingMoreOutoftheApplication