Using Diigo Webslides to access and interact with learning resources

Diigo is a function-rich social bookmarking platform. I’ve discussed some of its features in a previous post, but in today’s post I’d like to discuss applications for the Webslides function.

The technology (or what are my powers)

The video below describes the basics of using Webslides on Diigo.

Your entry way to information about Webslides is a bit cryptic, so use this link (http://slides.diigo.com).

Then click on this button (or browse around the page to learn more).

Clicking on the green button gets you to the following screen and gives you two avenues to create a Webslides: from an RSS feed or from a list of bookmarks you’ve created.

Just follow the instructions, once you’ve decided your path. As an example, I’ll show how to create a Webslides of your blog.

In Step 1, just provide the link to your blog feed.

In Step 2, confirm the feed you’ve selected.

In Step 3, decide how you’d like viewers to see your Webslides. When viewers view your blog from Webslides, it will count as page views, so selecting full Window Mode won’t take away from your page view count.

In Step 4, you’ll have the option to select a widget code that will provide access to your Webslides. If your blog is generally embed friendly (e.g., Blogger), you’ll be able to embed a Webslides on a Web page of your choosing, If you have a WordPress blog that’s not self-hosted (e.g., like this one), select the first widget option. You’ll get code for an image that’s linked to your Webslides.

I’ve saved this code to my text widgets, so if you look at the lower  right side of this blog, you’ll see it.

Go ahead and kick the tires!

As discussed, your other option is to create a Webslides from a bookmark list. Although you can go to http://slides.diigo.com to create a Webslides from one of your bookmark lists, there’s a shortcut. Simply go to your list home, and select “Play as Webslides.”

Once you’ve created a Webslides, you can customize settings by using the options at the bottom of your Webslides view, as illustrated below.

The “Customize Webslides” option allows you to control the timing of each slide, autoplay slides, and/or to add audio to a Webslide presentation.

Each list WebSlides has a unique URL and can be associated with a widget that you can post to your blog or even a social network profile. As with RSS feed-based Webslides, depending on the type of Web site, you’ll be able to embed Webslides or post a hyperlinked image. You can make Webslides completely public or share it with select users via email.

Here’s the Widget for the Webslides of my paper.li resources:

You can also access this Webslides via this link: http://slides.diigo.com/widget/slides?sid=35692

Instructional strategies

Diigo Webslides provides an easy way to bundle Web pages. You can use it to:

• Provide learning  resources (e.g., for course work, training, team efforts, etc.)
• Create a guided tour of a Web site
• Share RSS feeds
• Access your own bundled resources and RSS feeds
• Create an interactive learning module by linking to Web pages with informational pages, discussion forums, polls, quizzes, and other interactivity

Because Webslides are part of the Diigo platform, learners who are registered Diigo users can add new layers of information to a Webslides presentation by annotating pages of interest with sticky notes or highlighting. Learners can also bookmark, tag, share and clip content to their personal Diigo accounts, saving content to their own lists.

As an instructor, you can also annotate and highlight Web pages, using your movable sticky notes to add questions or challenges for your learners or to add instructions for getting the most out of a particular Web page. As noted, by selecting a particular sequence of informational and interactive Web pages, you can create a learning module using Webslides.

Because learners have access to the Table of Contents for a Webslides, learners aren’t locked into a linear viewing of the content, but can pull information they need when they need it. Learners can proceed linearly if they choose and they can use their Webslides options to alter the speed of a presentation or to see the list view of the bookmarks that form the content of the presentation. Bottom line: Webslides offers learners quite a bit of control over their learning process.

Now, a tangent: A word about paper.li

Since I’ve created a paper.li Webslides, I’ll take a moment  to discuss this tool. If you’re a Twitter user, you may have seen Tweets proclaiming that the “[name a subject] Daily is out.”  This is a paper.li collection of tweets filtered by hashtags, keywords, and/or Twitter contributors and is created by individual Twitter users (i.e., don’t assume a paper.li is endorsed by a particular group). The paper.li tool displays this collection in a visually appealing newspaper format with graphics and images. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of different paper.li’s out there, including those you’ve created yourself. I chose to create a Webslides of my paper.li collection for easier viewing. (It feels more like a newspaper to me this way.) Paper.li’s aren’t static, so today’s Webslides’ view won’t be the same as tomorrow’s. This is just an example of a way you can use Webslides to access your personal learning resources.