My Digital Classroom

Today was another day at the Secondary Literacy Network. It is one day per term where a number of the Literacy leaders in Catholic schools in Melbourne get together for a day of professional learning. One of the things I really enjoy about these days is hearing from other literacy leaders about how they are trying to embed literacy across the whole school and some of their experiences. The personal journey of one such leader today was both eye-opening and refreshing. This was a person who had been teaching for 15-20 years (across both primary and secondary) and was experiencing the same sorts of problems that I, and many others, are experiencing in our own schools.

In the following session, Jo Ryan from Clonard College shared how she had been teaching her Year 9s about a year 12 issues unit. She has scaffolded the work to a high degree and provided the students with a framework to approach what can be a difficult part of the course. We were all given a copy of her unit and I think this is something that we could use back at school as a way of preparing our Year 10s for VCE English.

Listening to the Edtech crew podcast last year, I was trying to figure out what the point was of social bookmarking. Fast forward one year later and I have come to rely on one site in particular- Diigo, for keeping me up-to-date with all the new tools, sites and information available on the web.

So what is social bookmarking?

1. Basically, it means you can have all of your bookmarked/favourite sites kept online. Normally when you bookmark a website, it goes into the bookmarks/favourites folder on that particular computer. If you log in on another computer, you do not have access to any of your bookmarked sites. When you set up an account with Diigo (or Delicious), you can bookmark your favourite sites and that information is kept online. You just have to log in to the site to retrieve your bookmarks.
2. Bookmarks on Diigo & Delicious are organised by tags. Tags allow you to bookmark sites under a number of different categories at the same time. It is like placing the same piece of paper in a number of relevant folders in a filing cabinet.

So why do I use Diigo instead of the more popular Delicious? Simply, it is the ability to join groups. While I do spend a bit of time on the internet, I do not have the time to search for everything. By becoming part of a group, I can benefit from all of the links found by other members of the group by receiving emails periodically. By joining multiple groups, I can share and receive links in a number of different areas. Some of the Diigo groups I belong to include IWB Pedagogy, OZ/NZ Educators, English teachers, Ed Tech Crew. They all provide me with links on a daily or weekly basis.

The video below is another excellent tutorial from the people at Commoncraft and it explains the ins and outs of social bookmarking and how it all works.