I’ve just experienced for the first time Diigo.com and I have to say that I wasn’t too impressed with the program. For starters, I much rather read a hard copy of something. Reading on a computer screen starts to become fuzzy and frankly my eyes start to burn and become irritated especially when you’re reading four pages. Also, when it comes to annotating, this task was very difficult for me. I’m still not sure if my sticky notes and highlighted items become public because it wouldn’t let me click on the pull-down menu to make it public instead of private. I also feel generally, when you are annotating, you are basically jotting down a few notes about the passage, however when you do this technique online, as you type you know you have an audience that is reading this so what you choose to write becomes more detailed so people can understand it. When I think of annotating something, it’s for me to look back on certain key areas or even areas that weren’t so clear to me. I’m not sure what the purpose of doing this online is when annotating is for my personal benefit.

As I am going through my years of college, some professors keep mentioning about professional development. As a pre-service teacher I need all of the professional development that I can get. I haven’t touched my Teaching Portfolio in over a year now. There are still things I need to add to it from last semester and my professional development section is very thin. My question is what can I do now to build my professional development before I even become a teacher? I don’t know what there is out there for me to do or where to look. There are many things that I would be interested in doing if only I knew where those resources are. Everyone please remmber…Keep Smiling!!!

There is a “hot” topic that has been the center of discussion in many college education courses and that is the discussion of DIVERSITY. Many professors are introducing to inspiring teachers how important it is to present diversity in the classroom in a very positive way. Some of these presentations could be displaying different types of diversity around the classroom walls. This could deal with different cultures being displayed on the walls or different roles that men and women play. Some of these roles could be a role that a woman usually demonstrates, but showing a man doing that role instead. One example of mulitculturalism in the classroom could be a bulletin board that displays “celebrations around the world.” Any culture that is celebrated during any month could be displayed on the bulletin board and then discussed in class.  Teachers need to present their knowledge to the class in an appropriate way. The students also need to be resepectful when being exposed to different cultures as not to hurt any of the other students feelings. Here is a youtube video that provides a little more information about Diversity.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKsz8yBdCvM

Diigo.com is very new to me. I am still trying to get the hang of the whole sticky notes task. I have a strong feeling that I am not doing it the correct way. It is a brilliant way to annotate on the comuter instead of having to print out a 10 page essay and then annotating that way. It saves a lot of paper this way. I think it is something everyone in school should try at least once to see how it works and if they even like it. I don’t know if I would continue using Diigo because I get all figgity. I feel like I’m going to hit the wrong key and highlight something that I didnt mean to highlight. Every so often it gets confusing. But, Diigo is worth trying at least once to see what it is like.

Diigo.com. Is this site really user friendly? I think not. I have tried and tried to log on and do these annotations and it is very frustrating. I decided that after numerous tries to install the toolbar as the Diigo.com site says “Toolbar for your browser is not available.” It is very frustrating for people who attend school, work, and try to maintain a normal social life to dedicate the time to constantly check and see if the tool bar is actually able to access. I just wish there was a better manual to the site on how I can read, “You Tube vs. Boob Tube,” and annotate and add sticky notes. It doesn’t seem like a hard task to accomplish, but yet I guess I am not a very good computer user! The site seems like it would be a great idea to show professors that students read the material and what they think about the articles. However, it is very time consuming to try to figure out and wish that I can figure this site out to not receive penalty for homework assignments. This problem with the site shows how teachers need to be understandable in how technology may fail (as I cannot download the toolbar) and how teachers must correct the problem on their feet. Hopefully this technical difficulty will soon be fixed and I can finish the assignment on time.

Does anyone know how to use this site?