Using Diigo

Diigo is a social bookmarking tool that helps you bookmark, track, annotate, and share the pages that you read on the Web. Diigo is great way to manage your own online scholarship, tracking and organizing the things that you read online over the years. Diigo also helps you build and extend your personal learning network (PLN) to your colleagues and to your students so that you can share your reading with those who share your interests and they can share with you. Thus, Diigo at one and the same time multiplies the number of eyeballs scanning the Net for information and filters the information caught in that extended search. The following video gives a nice overview of how you can use Diigo:

To use Diigo, you must first create an account. Then you should install either the Diigo toolbar into your web browser or the Diigolet utility. These tools allow you to use your Diigo account while you are surfing the Web. Finally, you should create or join Diigo groups to share your bookmarks with.

STEP 1: Create a Diigo Account

Diigo has made it very easy to create a Diigo account. You can use your Google account. This has the added benefit of automatically allowing Diigo to communicate with you through your gMail account.

1. Point your web browser to www.diigo.com

2. On the Diigo front page, click on the Google button to log in with your Google credentials.

1. On the next screen, enter your Google account information, and click Sign in.

1. Finally, click Allow to give Google permission to share your Google account information with Diigo.

   1. You're in. Enjoy.

STEP 2: Install Diigo Toolbar or Diigolet into Your Web Browser

Diigo provides two tools for you to use whenever you are browsing the Net and come across a page that you want to bookmark to Diigo. The Diigo Toolbar installs a new row of icons and buttons in your browser's window, as shown below. 

Because this uses valuable browser real estate, some people don't like it; however, the Diigo Toolbar is the more powerful and useful of the two tools.

To Install the Diigo Toolbar:

1. Point your web browser to www.diigo.com, and on the Diigo home page, click the Install Diigo Toolbar button. 

1. At the Install Diigo Toolbar window, click Allow to permit Diigo to install the Toolbar onto your web browser. This example uses the web browser Firefox. 

1. Your web browser may issue a warning about installing software from the Internet. Click Install Now.

2. After the Diigo Toolbar completes its installation, you must restart your web browser. 

1. When you restart, you will see the Diigo Toolbar in your browser's menu bar.

To Install the Diigolet Button:

1. On the Diigo home page, click on the Tools button in the upper right-hand corner.

2. On the Tools page, click on the Diigolet button on the right-hand menu.

3. On the Diigolet page, follow the instructions to drag the Diigolet button into your web browser's Bookmarks toolbar.

4. When you find a page that you want to bookmark, then click the Diigolet button in your Bookmarks toolbar to display an abbreviated Diigo toolbar for you to use.

STEP 3: Join a Diigo Group

1. Inside Diigo, click the My Groups tab to go to your Groups page.

2. In the search box at the upper, right-hand corner, enter writing across the curriculum, and select Find groups interested in. 

1. When Diigo returns the results of all Diigo groups interested in writing across the curriculum, scroll down until you find the listing for Writing Across the Curriculum, owned by Keith Hamon. 

1. Click on the highlighted title to go to the group page, and click on the Join this group button.

1. Diigo will then tell you if you are a member of the group (some groups require authorization by the group owner), and if so, it will give you the opportunity to leave a message for the group owner and select how often you wish to be notified of new bookmarks in the group. In the example below, I checked Daily, which means that each day I will receive an email notifying me of any new bookmarks made by the elearning 2.0 group.

1. Click Finish, and Diigo will take you to the group page where you can review past bookmarks.

2. Enjoy your new group.