Diigo - new research tool

Mary Ann Apple shared this tool she learned about at NECC with Debra Lazar. I recently checked it out and it seems to have potential as a tool for students collaborating on a research project.

Diigo is a powerful research tool and a knowledge-sharing community. From the Diigo website: "Diigo provides a browser add-on that can really improve your research productivity. As you read on the web, instead of just bookmarking, you can highlight portions of web pages that are of particular interest to you. You can also attach sticky notes to specific parts of web pages. Unlike most other web "highlighters" that merely clip, Diigo highlights and sticky notes are persistent in the sense that whenever you return to the original web page, you will see your highlights and sticky notes superimposed on the original page, just what you would expect if you highlighted or wrote on a book!

Moreover, all the information -- highlighted paragraphs, sticky notes, and the original url -- are saved on Diigo servers, creating your personal digest of the web, your own collection of highlights from the web - ones that are meaningful to you! You can easily search, access, sort and share this collection from any PC or even iphone."

See the flash tutorial:http://www.diigo.com/help/flash_tutorial

I plan to play with this web 2.0 tool this year.

Remember the Milk

Some say "Remember the Milk" is the best web-based task manager out there. It features a variety of great webapps: email/SMS/IM integration, tagging, advanced search, keyboard shortcuts and even offline access with Google Gears. Since most people work across several computers and need a single, always-accessible place to consolidate their work, personal, school, and family to-do's an application like Remember the Milk. I decided to try it out and start using it with Google Calendar this year. It has some easy sharing features and I think it could help me get organized for the school year. If I think it's worthwhile I will probably shift from my Comcast mail to gmail.

I Love My Librarian 2008 Award

This is an opportunity for students to nominate their librarian and explain how a librarian made a difference in their lives. Nominations are open from September 2 and must be received by October 15, 2008. Up to 10 winners will be selected and receive a $5000 cash award presented in NYC by the New York Times.

"Nominees will be judged by a selection committee based on quality of service to library users, demonstrated knowledge of the library and its resources and commitment shown in helping library users." For more information, visit www.ilovelibraries.org/ilovemylibrarian.

ALA website tool

Create your own mini-Read posters. This tool offers 4 different backgrounds in which you can upload a picture. Take it for a test drive.

Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web

This 19 minute TED talk asks "how can we predict what's coming in the next 5,000 days?"
Kelly visualizes the web as one big machine. Eventually everything will be "cloud computing". There will be embedded intelligence in every THING. This type of media convergence is where we are going. Listen to what he envisions for web 3.0 .

We Stole This Idea. Or Did We?

Davis Schneiderman, associate professor of English at Lake Forest College argues that the concept of "original content" is pure fiction. Read today's Chicago Tribune article that discusses copyright and plagiarism. Schneiderman suggests that "Our art, sometimes explicitly and sometimes quietly, continues to be made by us all."

Our we moving to an open source world?