It was nice to see a few people get the chance to play with Diigo last week. If you have any tips or tricks to share with those that have not had a chance to experience the tool, please share your advice. One tip I can share is the following. I notices that once I have the Diigo dialog up on my screen, if I click off on another window, the Diigo dialog disappears and I need to start my tag over. I am horrible with names and I keep wanting to double check on the sub category names to ensure I am tagging correctly. My "fix" is to copy the sub category name from the document before I open up the Diigo tagging dialog so that I don't have to leave the dialog to have all the info I need.
This week is when we really start pushing to get content into our Diigo group. Many of us are affiliated with collections or have our own private stashes of great resources out there on the Internet. It can be overwhelming to think of all some of us might have links to. I have found it beneficial to pick one topic from our category document and just hit up my bookmarks and some online collections to "remember" or discover options that look like they have some application in the adult education field. After finding half a dozen of my links and getting them tagged correctly, I take a break and come back to focus on another category. If I did not focus in this way, I would quickly become confused with, "Did I already tag this one to the group yet?" So, I find it personally easier to just exhaust the options I have easily available in a given category to help me remember what resources I might have shared already. Everyone is of course welcome to use whatever strategy helps you get your sites tagged efficiently. Feel free to share with others any strategies you find works well with you.
I am offering the following suggested goals only to add a playful, game-like element to the week. Please do not stress about any quotas or any pressure. For those that are willing to accept the challenge I offer the following goals we each may shoot for if we can get some time this week:
- Basic Tagger: Correctly tag (with appropriate categories from our document) 20 or more sites total in any combination of categories
- Gotta Get Them All: Correctly tag at least one resource or tool in each of our sub categories from our document
- Tagging Guru: Have tagged more resources in total than any other group member from Tuesday 2/16 to Sunday 2/21 at midnight
- Staying Topical: Have the most correct tags in any one sub category from our document. Note this award individually applies to each topic
- Tagging Jedi: The first person to share a video or screen cast walk through of how we tag a resource with Diigo will win this award. Note it must be your performance and not just a generic "How to" video on Youtube. Keep it specific to how a teacher might tag a resource in our Diigo group.
Please remember that the above goals are for fun and to inspire. There is no money available for grand prizes or even cheap trophies 
Just remember that no matter who "wins" we all win in the valuable collection we will be assembling this week. I will keep my contributions out of the tally in order to give some of you a fighting chance (big grin).
Have fun all and if you still would like some help getting started tagging, please drop a request here in the forums or you may email me if you wish it more private. The important thing is to offer you the support you need to start sharing the wonderful resources you know about!
Comments
I was digging through my "Simulations" category and came upon this wonderful collection I had forgotten about. This site http://playinghistory.org/items has over 125 Historical Games! My first inclination is to just tag the collection as Simulations and we can later include History or other tags. The problem is that an end user coming to look for a simulation for Gettysburg would have to plow through all 125+ offerings on this site instead of being able to just type in a tag search for Simulations, Revolutionary War or something similar. I also question how we might effectively evaluate a collection like this. Collections can hold a vast diversity of offerings and I fear that if we tag a collection, we may not be able to evaluate in any meaningful way.
I offer that we may need to dig into collections like this to pull out the items we really feel those in the field may best benefit from. It may take a bit more time initially, but it will save thousands of hours out in the field of users getting lost in huge collections looking for that golden nugget they were looking for.
Am I off base with this thinking? Do others have a counter position and rational?
Just a heads up that we needed to change the name of the Diigo group. I apologize if this adds any confusion. If you have difficulty finding the group with the new name, the link to the group is right here. https://groups.diigo.com/group/lincs-educational-resources
Although our very own Steve Quann is off to a wonderful start in tagging things in our Diigo Group, he has not built up an insurmountable lead yet! Hopefully, everyone can get an hour or so this weekend to tag some of your favorite tools I know you have bookmarked on your systems or in some secrete stash. Some of you have HUGE repositories and you probably have been being polite to allow others the chance to get into the game. Well, it's time to let'er rip and go all in!
I am proposing a group goal. We currently have 20 entries which is a start that allows us to see a little bit of how this system might work. I feel that with our talented group of individuals, with all the resource banks we all know about, and with just an hour or two from each of us, we should be able to get to .... wait for it ... 500 tagged sites by Sunday Night! (insert audible gasp from the audience now as heads start shaking but a few grins of determination start to show).
To facilitate this massive tagfest, I offer up the idea of doing a Google Hangout with anyone wishing to participate. I can share how we tag, answer questions, and we can all have a nice social discussion with each other while we "tag along" with each other for an hour or so. What do you think? I know it might be short notice for many of us, but it is not mandatory and it really is a spur of the moment idea that would help us get to know each other in a less formal way while we support each other as we tag away. Two birds, one stone... good times !
I know schedules are all over the place and this is probably short notice for all of us, but I offer the following hours/days as options. Please note that if there are two or more people for ANY of these given times, I will be there hanging out with you. If you have never used google hangouts before, this is a great low pressure way to get to play with it with tons of friends that are all supporting your learning. I offer the following times in this Doodle, so please feel free to "sign up" if you have time slots you would like. If you DEFINITELY know you can be at the times you indicate, please drop a note to that effect in the Notes section at the bottom of the Doodle.
I looked around for a guide or introduction to google plus, but everything I found was quite dated or so specifically geared towards non educators I was not feeling good with those resources. I hope I can get some time later today or early tomorrow to post a guide or "how to" to help facilitate people getting into the google hangout. Remember, we have many people here with vast amounts of different experiences. If you post a simple, "How might I ...?" you are sure to get tons of support!
I hope others are excited, not only with the idea of having so much tagging fun this weekend, but we all get so few opportunities to connect with peers around the country in low key settings. We always walk away from those few low key get together feeling that we wished things like that happened more often. Here is an opportunity to make it happen. I hope to catch up with some of you this weekend if you are available and willing to give this a go. Regardless, I will be tagging this weekend and encourage others to tag your hearts out if you can. Next week we dive into starting up our evaluation process which may take us some time. We can continue tagging and filling in some blanks as we get time throughout the process, but this weekend, we can focus just on tagging. Happy tagging everyone!
It has come to my attention that we only have 4 of us on Diigo at the moment. This implies that there may be challenges out there in terms of getting on Diigo and getting into the group. I am available to help anyone get set up, please just email me ( ohgeer@gmail.com ) and I can get you set up and going in just a minute or two. Of course you can post help questions here as well.
Here is a link to our Diigo Group titled Adult Education Resources
https://groups.diigo.com/group/lincs-educational-resources
I would hate to have all of you missing out on the fun! You all have such great resources to share and tagging really just takes about 59.8 seconds :)
Please let me know what I can offer to help you get set up and joining the group as soon as you are able to.
We just got another person into the Diigo group!!! Wooo Hoo .. that brings us up to 5 people. It sure would be nice to get the rest of you in on the fun! Please email me ohgeer@gmail.com if you wish me to manually add you to the group to help you get in and get started. We are almost up to 50 tagged resources which is only 1/10 of the ambitious goal set up last week. I know we will accomplish amazing things this afternoon :)
Thank you all for any time you can put in on getting into Diigo and learning how to tag using the categories we have set up in our shared document.