RSS and Diigo

In the RSS chapter this week Richardson (Richardson, 2010) said one of the things that he really likes about the tool is that he spends less time looking all over the web for information. Instead it comes to him through his aggregator. This reminded me about Twitter and how it really is an aggregator of sorts for me as well. In fact in the first of the two Richardson clips from the EduCon 2.5 post from Prof Arzt's Integrating Technology and Literacy blog he talks about 19 bold ideas for tech in (and out) of the classroom:

iste-presentation from Will Richardson on Vimeo.

For idea 14 he says to stop Googling stuff and talks about how one of the most important things that has happened to him in the last 5 years is that instead of going to Google to answer a question he goes to Twitter where he has developed a like-minded network who can answer his questions better. I'd like to say that Twitter helps me find information about teaching or technology (or better yet both) but I really only use it at this point to follow my favorite hobby. But this has given me enough exposure to it to confirm what Richardson is talking about. I spend a lot less time on the web looking for info because it comes to me. When my favorite site or magazine publishes an article they almost always tweet a link to it. To a degree someone’s reputation is at stake when posting links to make sure that they are worthwhile, topical and working. With all the recent developments in the Lance Armstrong saga I had all the information, and more, than I could want delivered right to me. I hope that I find RSS to offer the same kind of functionality but am skeptical it can do it as elegantly as Twitter. 

As for Diigo, I'm ruined. Ruined as in there is no turning back. It's kind of like the first time you live on your own without a roommate. Or own a car where it can be locked and unlocked with the key fob – there's no going back. Diigo has changed the way I surf the web. The way the web works unfortunately enables my stream of consciousness, complete no tasks before starting new ones, tendencies. I used to browse with 10 tabs open at once and now – wait, scratch that, I currently have 14 open between two browsers haha. 

So maybe I still need an intervention and while I haven’t done much with it other than make bookmarks I am much more organized and efficient. Prior I used to email links to myself which just further clogged up my already clogged up email. Even worse I would sometimes save multiple links in a word document and email that to myself. And now everything is one easy to search (tags) and organize (lists) place.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. (3rd ed.). Corwin Press.