692R-2008-Book-Highlighting

Social Annotation Web annotation is the digital equivalent of margin notes in a used textbook or the markings in your favorite set of scriptures. Many applications will allow you to highlight passages and/or take notes on electronic documents or even your favorite web pages. These markings become social when you choose to share your notes with others so that they can benefit from your insights. The 13th Article of Faith teaches us to seek after things that are "virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy." Social annotation tools provide us with ways to process and share virtuous and praiseworthy electronic resources once we find them.

Tool History and Context Social annotation tools tend to combine some of the features of social bookmaking with some of the features of web annotation. Bookmarking was once a browser-bound process; if you saved a favorite site at home you couldn't access it using your computer at work (Chapter 6? provides additional perspective on the development of social bookmarking tools). Desktop annotation programs faced a similar limitation. The ability to run bookmarking and annotation (and many other types of) applications on a remote server, sometimes referred to as cloud computing, has made it possible to easily share annotated electronic resources.

A Quick Comparison of Selected Social Annotation Applications Image:Social Annotation Application Comparison Table.jpg Uploads are apparently disabled, so here is the link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Social_Annotation_Application_Comparison_Table.jpg.

Diigo There are several social annotation tools to choose from, but this chapter will focus on Diigo. Diigo is an acronym that stands for Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff. Diigo has many features that make it an attractive choice for social annotation. First, like social bookmarking applications, Diigo allows you to keep all of your bookmarks on the web and access them from any internet-enabled computer. Diigo also allows you to tag bookmarks, save descriptions of bookmarks, and create lists of bookmarks. You can choose to share a bookmark or list publicly, within a particular group, or keep a bookmark private. What sets Diigo apart from most social bookmarking applications is the ability to highlight text on webpages and or leave notes on webpages. As with the bookmarks themselves, Diigo allows you to share your notes publicly, within groups, or keep notes private. In addition to its social bookmarking and social annotation features, Diigo has social networking features as well. Each Diigo user has a profile page and can accept or request friendship from other Diigo users. Diigo provides users with metrics that indicate how much "common stuff", including tags and bookmarks, that they share with other Diigo users. This helps individuals find people with similar interests. Diigo also allows users to create interest groups where users can gather to discuss their common interests.

How Is Diigo Commonly Used? Diigo is commonly used as a personal research tool, for collaborative research, for knowledge sharing, and for social content (I'm not sure what citation format we're using, but here's the information that should be relevant: Jennifer Dorman, "Diigo Tutorial". http://www.slideshare.net/cliotech/diigo-tutorial-presentation/. Posted: October 2008. Accessed: November 2008.).

Diigo as a Personal Research Tool Diigo could be a personal research tool for Gospel study, allowing you to make markings during online scripture study just as you might in the physical copies of the scriptures you have at home. You could also use Diigo to annotate articles from church magazines, such as General Conference talks. Diigo could also help you organize and keep track of web-based family history sources or online information about emergency preparedness.

Diigo as a Collaborative Research Tool Families, church units, presidencies, and classes could use the collaborative features of Diigo to research gospel topics relevant to their needs and easily share their findings. Families might use Diigo to collect resources for Family Home Evening Activities. Extended families could use Diigo as way to keep in touch and even to share resources for planning family reunions.

Diigo as a Tool for Knowledge Sharing Once you have a network of Diigo contacts, you can start to share the content that you bookmark and the comments that you have made. While you have the option to keep all of your bookmarks and comments private, remember the words of the Savior in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorifyyour Father which is in heaven.”

Diigo as a source for Social Content  As your Diigo network grows, you can start benefiting from social content recommended to you by your network. Diigo can suggest to you other individuals who might share common interests, based on common resources and tags. By exploring these recommendations, you can expand your network, and your circle of influence. When a large enough group of people use Diigo to bookmark a particular web resource that is “virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy “, the web resource may make it the list of "popular" bookmarks, bringing it to the attention of an even wider audience. Try to imagine the potential impact of a large body of Saints filtering the web through their recommendations.

How Do I Use Diigo? To begin using Diigo, you first need to sign up for the service by visiting http://www.diigo.com/. Near the top right hand corner you will find the link to "Join Diigo". (insert image here) You will then go to a screen that will ask you to create your username, provide your first and last name, provide your email address, and choose your password. In no time at all, you will have a Diigo account. (insert image here)

Once you have created your account, take some time to visit the Diigo help center, http://help.diigo.com/. You can also access the help center through the Help link at the bottom of the Diigo homepage or your Diigo Dashboard (you need to scroll down to the very bottom of the site). One of the first things that you will want to do is set up your profile page. You can access your profile by clicking on your profile name from the Diigo navigation menu. Your profile name will appear on the top of the page, just to the left of the search bar. In this example, it is kamccollum. (insert image here)

When you set up your profile, you can set up how much of your information different groups of people can see when they visit your profile. You will probably want your friends to be able to see more information than other Diigo users or the general public. Even with privacy controls, you should still be cautious about what personal information you choose to share via a social networking site like Diigo.

After you set up your profile, you can begin bookmarking. If you have used other bookmarking applications before Diigo, you may want to import these bookmarks into Diigo. The Diigo help guide will walk you through the steps of importing bookmarks from applications such as Delicious. The method that you use to bookmark with Diigo will depend on your browser. Users of the Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Flock browsers can choose between the Diigo Toolbar and the less feature rich Diigolet button. Only Diigolet is available for the Safari, Opera, Chrome and Maxthon browsers. The Diigo Toolbar permits one-click bookmarking, highlighting, commenting. The Toolbar also allows the user to open a sidebar as you browse. The sidebar allows the user to search bookmarks while browsing. The sidebar also displays comments on particular pages. The Diigolet, while less powerful than the Diigo toolbar, still permits one-click bookmarking, highlighting, and commenting. The Diigolet also allows user to toggle between annotated and unannotated views of the current page in their browser window.

When you make a bookmark, comment or other annotation using Diigo, you have the option of making the comment public, private, or sharing with a particular group. You can also set your settings so that all of your comments are shared or kept private by default. To fully experience the social aspect of Diigo, you may want to participate in a few Diigo Groups. Click on the “Communities” link in the navigation menu at the top of the page. When you do this, you will be taken to the Diigo Groups page, shown below.(insert image here)

You may want to explore the Family & Home or Religion and Beliefs categories, two categories likely to be discussing issues of interest to Latter Day Saints. When you contribute to groups be careful to participate with a true Christian spirit and avoid contention. If you don't find a group to your liking, you might try forming your own group. It's a simple process that starts with clicking the big blue button that says “Create a new group”. After you name your group, you will be able to invite individuals to join your group. The individuals that you invite do not need to be current members of Diigo, but they will have to create a Diigo account before they can accept your invitation.

Where Are Other Free Online Tutorials? If you would like further assistance using Diigo try one of the following tutorials:
 * Diigo Help Center - http://help.diigo.com/
 * Clay Burell's Diigo tutorial - http://beyond-school.org/2007/01/02/a-better-diigo-tutorial/
 * Jennifer Dorman's Diigo Tutorial Powerpoint Presentation available via Authorstream (also available via SlideShare) http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Cliotech-88244-diigo-tutorial-social-bookmarking-education-research-collaboration-diigotutorial-ppt-powerpoint/

How Can I Use Diigo to Share the Gospel? A simple way to start using Diigo to share the Gospel is to begin by annotating church talks or the online scriptures with your personal testimony. You could highlight a meaningful passage and describe your testimony of how a particular principle has affected your life. You may even choose to annotate news stories that mention the church, perhaps sharing your conversion story.

Another way to share the Gospel using Diigo is correct inaccuracies about the church that you may find as you surf the web. In general, if a website allows comments, you should politely offer the correct information using the comment feature. However, if comments are not allowed on the website, and you are unable to contact the author or administrator of the website, Diigo provides you with some recourse. The only people who will be able to see your comment are other Diigo users. Still, the opportunity to reach a portion of the entire audience, is better than nothing. As always, be polite and non-confrontational in your comments. You do not want to contribute to contention. Additionally, it is best not to attempt to annotate anti-Mormon websites. This technique is more appropriate when dealing with sources that are simply mistaken, rather than intentional antagonistic.

Perhaps the best way to use Diigo to share the Gospel is to create lists of annotated resources related to gospel topics. You could collect a set of resources on family history, parenting, or family togetherness and annotate them to share your testimony of the eternal nature of families. Alternatively, you could collect news stories about individuals that exemplify service or  volunteer opportunities in your local area or the world and annotate them with testimony of the importance of Christ-like service. The possibilities are endless. Whenever you express your feelings and opinions of the Gospel, be sure to indicate that these are your personal feelings and that you do not speak for the Church as a whole. Doctrine and Covenants 50:22 states, “Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together.” Used properly, Diigo has the potential to expand the circle of people who are communicating about Gospel topics, increasing the number of people who can potentially be edified by the discussion and come to rejoice together in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Try This
 * To begin using Diigo, try annotating a General Conference talk or a chapter in the online scriptures. Highlight relevant passages and describe your feelings about the highlighted passages.
 * Collect a list of resources on a Gospel principle that has been particularly meaningful in your life. Annotate each resource with an appropriate mention of your personal testimony of that principle or a relevant scripture.
 * Try contributing to an existing group in the Religion and Beliefs Category or Family and Home communities. Contribute an appropriate  resource that the group of your choice.  This could be an inspirational thought, an idea for family togetherness, or some other resource.  It may or may not be a church-authored resource.  Use the annotations to share a portion of your testimony of the relevant Gospel principle.  Remember to be respectful of other's beliefs and avoid participating in contentious group or discussions.

Examples of Existing Attempts to Share the Gospel using Diigo The following are examples of current attempts to use Diigo to share the Gospel
 * Jeff VanDrimmelen has created a Group for LDS study and resources:  http://groups.diigo.com/groups/lds-study-and-resources --
 * ?maybe our class should start a group and include the resources from the book. Each of us can annotate and add our ideas for sharing Gospel messages

How Can Diigo Affect My Family? Diigo is a wonderful resource with great potential for good. Like most Internet tools, it also has potential to be misused. Some of the risks associated with using Diigo include the possibility friend requests from individuals who are not seeking true friendship, groups with collection of resources and tags that are not consistent with Gospel messages, and the use of inappropriate language in public comments.

To defend your family from potential risks, you should exercise caution when using Diigo. Examine potential friends carefully before accepting friendship and do not hesitate to end friendships if an individual attempts to harass or scam you. Contact Diigo administrators if you are contacted by a person exhibiting inappropriate behavior, they have the power to revoke individual memberships. Groups with inappropriate topics can generally be easily avoided by not joining the group. If you create your own group, you will have the ability to moderate your group's membership and discussion. If you find inappropriate public annotations to be a problem, you can choose to only view the annotations of friends that you know and trust.