Diigo Idea for Middle School Students

After exploring through curation tools and reading an article about how Diigo was used with university students I am thinking this would be a great tool to use in the secondary classroom!

In my current position my students participate in the National History Day history fair. I enjoy facilitating this project with my students since they can choose their historical topic as long as it fits with the yearly theme, and they are introduced to historical research. This project teaches students research skills such as identifying primary sources, analyzing the validity of websites, and proper MLA formatting.

When brainstorming how to use Diigo in my classroom, I want to use it with the whole class, as described in the case study done by Professor Dennen, to introduce historical research and determining validity of websites. I think this would be a great way for the whole class to collaborate online before they start to work on their own projects. 

During this project, I allow my students to either work individually or in pairs. Once the project begins I would suggest using Diigo to bookmark and annotate their sources. This way partners can see what each has found and I can keep an eye on their research just in case I would need to intervene. In the past I haven’t been able to catch unreliable sources until it was too late when students submitted their works cited page, so I’m hoping this tool will prevent this.

I’m super excited to try out this tool with my students this coming year, wish me luck!