FAQ

Q:  Diigo in Education?

The 21st century calls for knowledge workers who can effectively utilize the vast array of information that resides on the internet and who are capable of processing the information collaboratively with others.  Bob Wolf, of The Boston Consulting Group, and a researcher on the use of internet in public education recently commented: "We believe that Web2.0 technologies will define and be defined by the skill requirements of the 21st century workforce. It is time to understand whether models have emerged for using these tools that are superior to traditional classroom teaching alone and what are the best approaches for the practitioner to implement them."

In the education setting, we all know that project-based learning is an effective way to teach students and cultivate their skills of finding, organizing, synthesizing, and presenting information, as well as the social skills of working in groups, all of which are necessary in the knowledge-based economy. Among the web 2.0 technologies, Diigo is a great tool for this kind of exploratory and collaborative learning. 

Diigo is an effective tool for teaching as well. Diigo's features allow teachers to highlight critical features within text and images and write comments directly on the web pages, to collect and organize series of web pages and web sites into coherent and thematic sets, and to facilitate online conversations within the context of the materials themselves.  Diigo also allows teachers to collaborate and share resources among themselves.

Diigo is much more than a simple web annotation or social bookmarking service -- it is a new kind of online research and collaborative research tool that integrates tags and folders, highlighting and clipping, sticky notes, and group-based collaboration, enabling a whole new process of online knowledge management, learning, and teaching in the information age.

Q: What kind of Education Accounts do Diigo offer?

  • Diigo Education Domain (school) ~ new! 
  • Diigo Educator Accounts (teacher)  - see below 
For more info on "Diigo Education Domain", please see Diigo Education Domain FAQ's and Getting Started Guide (work-in-progress) 

Q: What are Diigo Educator Accounts? (work-in-progress.  Note:  the description below only references to regular teacher / educator account.  For tips for domain teacher accounts, please see Diigo Education Domain FAQs)

These are special premium accounts provided specifically to K-12 & higher-ed educators. Once your Diigo Educator application is approved, your account will be upgraded to have these additional features:

  • You can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
  • Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
  • Privacy settings of student accounts are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with them.
  • Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.

Q: What are student accounts?

Student accounts are Diigo accounts created by approved teachers through their Teacher Console. Note that accounts created through the normal sign-up process are NOT student accounts.

Student accounts have the following special settings to protect the privacy and safety of students.

  • Classmates in the same class are automatically added as friends with one another to facilitate communication, but students cannot add anyone else as friends except through email.
  • Students can only communicate with their friends and teachers.  No one except their friends can send message, group invite, or write on their profile wall.
  • Student profiles will not be indexed for People Search, nor made available to public search engines.

Q: How are students' safety and privacy protected on Diigo.com?

Special accounts for students as described here is the first phase of Diigo for Education.  In this phase, student accounts are protected by special settings which only allow their teachers and classmates to contact them and access their personal profile information.

In the second phase of Diigo for education to be made available later, a special domain will be created where only approved teachers and their students may access.

Q: Who is eligible for Diigo Educator Account upgrade?

The educator accounts are available exclusively for educational use and are restricted to K12 & higher-ed educators, administrators and education specialists.


If we find evidence of abuse, we reserve the right to remove the accounts and all associated content.

Q:  What if I wish to keep my own bookmarks (public) and friends list  from my students?

While student accounts that you have created automatically become your friends to facilitate easier communication with your students,a few educators have suggested that they would prefer to keep their personal / professional activities from their students.   We will take this feedback into consideration for the next phase of development.

Meanwhile, here is one simple solution that we would suggest:

Teacher can setup separate accounts - one is for their professional / personal usage, and one to be used for instruction with their students.  That way, there is less concern of mingling these.

 

Q:  Sounds great.   How do I apply?

Go to www.diigo.com/education and fill out the application form

Q: Can I change my existing group to a class group?

Absolutely.   Once you have been approved for the educator account upgrade,  for any existing Diigo regular group that you wish to convert to a "class group", please follow these steps:

1) Go to the group's  "manage group" >> "group overview".    Under the "group details" section, click "edit"
2) Change the category  to  "Education - K12"  and save the change.

That's it.  The group will then become a "class group" where you can find it under your "Teacher Console"

Similarily,  change the group category to something else will change the class group status and make it removed from your Teacher Console.

Q: What if my students have already registered for their own account and I want have their accounts converted to student accounts ?

No problem.  Tell us their usernames, and we will be able to assist you in converting their status from a regular account to a student account.

Q:  Can I collaborate with other teachers and add our students to a big class group?

Yes.   Please follow these steps:

1)  First, ceate a "Class Group"  under your Teacher Console  area

To add other teachers as collaborators to this group:     

1) use Option #3 in "Add members to group", and send your invites by email address or diigo usernames 

2) Once other teachers have joined,   go to Manage Member>>  and change their membership to become the moderator (full editing / invite right)

To add students to this group:

1)  Under Teacher Console, next to each class group,   click "Add Members".   
  • If your students don't have email / account,  use Option #1  to create student accounts by simply entering their names or uploading an entire class roaster at once.

  • If you have created other student accounts,   use Option #2 to add them to the class group

  • If your students have previously setup their own account (not the new student accounts created by you),   then use Option #3 to invite them to the group.  Note:  if you wish to have these students' account status converted to a "student account" with greater privacy limit and control,  please contact us for assistance.

Tip: for those teachers who have their educator upgrade status approved, joined and assigned as a group moderator,   they can also follow the same steps above and add student accounts that they have created to this class group.

Q: My question wasn't answered here. Where can I get more help?

No problem.  First, please check out  "Getting Started with Diigo Educator Accounts",  "Diigo Resources", and Diigo General Help.  

Here are few other educators generated tutorials that you may find quite useful:

You can join other educators in this educator group user forum, or  send us an email to education [AT] diigo dot com.  We look forward to hearing from you.

With the release of first phase Diigo Educator accounts, we look forward to exploring with leading educators the full potential of Diigo in education.  And as always, we will be working with our education community to define the next phase of Diigo for Education. If you’re an educator, give it a shot. And, as always, let us know what you think! 

Q:  Classroom Usecases / User Testimonials wanted!

We're in the process of organizing and building up classroom ideas and usecases.   If you have some interesting usecases / Diigo user experience,  please contact us!   We'd love to learn more, so that we can share these valuable resources with other educators! Thanks

Comments