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Pinterest v. Diigo

When I first read the assignment guidelines, I instantly knew that I would love this module. Pinterest is one of my favorite websites as a teacher. I have found fresh ideas and unique activities for my students. We live in such a creative world when we take a moment to look around. I was also very intrigued at the idea of Diigo. I had never hard of the site and after a little bit of time, quickly learned how useful it is. It is very much a convenience tool. All of the articles and important websites that I read are organized by tag and also highlighted with things that I like to read.

I began to see how different the sites were as I delved deeper into them. I was very familiar with Pinterest prior to this assignment, but after reading more about it and watching some online videos, I learned new features that I did not know before. In comparison with Diigo, the inability to highlight is a major letdown in my opinion. When I am looking at different articles, I sometimes only need a small piece of them. Diigo is great because I can highlight that small piece and instantly come back to it whenever I need it.

I often feel like Pinterest is a never-ending maze. I spend countless amounts of time looking back for things that I pinned months ago. Diigo's "tag" feature. Pinterest allows you to place tags in the comments of a pin but navigating to those tags is difficult. I found Diigo's tagging feature to be incredibly helpful. I was able to not only find the article I was looking for based on the tag, but also find the exact information I needed. The description section of Diigo was very helpful as well. I added short descriptions to my articles so that I know exactly what they refer to for future reference. Pinterest allows you to add your own "caption" but again, navigating to that caption is not nearly as user-friendly as Diigo. I also learned that Diigo has a feature where you can copy and paste from articles and they will directly appear in the comments about the site. Pinterest allows you to copy and paste but again, it will just show up as a caption, not as a comment.

Both sites offered the ability to follow people. Following people on Diigo is a little bit more organized than Pinterest because of the "Groups" feature. By grouping the people I follow, I will easily be able to find articles on specific topics without having to scroll through a long list of followers. Pinterest, on the other hand, does not allow you to group your followers. Instead, it is a long list that appears. Both sites also offer messaging features. Pinterest offers messaging in the form of "Direct Messaging" to specific users. I am able to send pins to friends via this feature. Diigo also allows you to send articles to followers. I found the process to be very simple and I really liked that I am able to send articles to whole groups.

Both sites offer suggestions. Diigo offers articles that fit your tags and previously saved articles. All of the articles recommended were useful. Pinterest offers an "Explore" section that has pins similar to your past searches as well as some other random pins. Each site suggestion was a bit different but both sites seem to offer the same feature.

After learning more about Pinterest and about Diigo this module, I will definitely continue to use both. Pinterest will forever be one of my favorite ways to gather creative, exciting ideas for my classroom and also my personal life. Diigo offers a great way to organize articles and research in a safe place. Both sites offer different features and perform different tasks, but each has been helpful and useful in unique ways.

Comments

  1. I think you nailed each of the core attributes of these sites. I agree that Pinterest seems like a maze. I get good ideas from there too, but it feels like a rabbit hole that I never seem to have the time to get sucked into. When I do have the time, I always feel like it's disorganized somehow. Wouldn't a smoosh of Pinterest and Diigo be nice? Would that be Pinteriigo or Diigerest?

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