As I reviewed the video tutorials (e.g. tour, research, share, collaborate) on the website at www.diigo.com/education, I realized that the notion of collecting resources on the web, highlighting and annotating them with sticky notes and then sharing them with others - feels like another opportunity for me to come to grips with my digital immigrant status and make some choices about I how want to do my work in the future. I am fairly committed to reducing my use of paper in my teaching and rarely print out handouts to distribute to students. Yet when it comes to conducting research on a topic or reading articles and taking notes, I prefer the old fashioned use of paper, pen and highlighter - at least I think this is my preference. But, as I have discovered so far in this EMDT program, my preferences are, for the most part, habitual methods of doing things that have brought some success in the past. But my habits aren't necessarily the best way to accomplish tasks - so I will invest some time and energy into using Diigo to see if I can become comfortable with moving more of my research and note-taking into an online environment.
Another thing that I realized in the middle of the night, is that for much of my 20 year career in academia, I have operated as a sole practitioner when conducting research and writing papers or case studies for publication. In my professional environment, I have been expected to demonstrate that I am an independent thinker who can clearly express my ideas in ways that add new knowledge to management practice and education. While I have collaborated with others on a few projects, most of my scholarly work has been done in isolation, only consulting others to review a draft or provide feedback on a paper before submitting it for publication. The thought of sharing resources that I found on a topic and my annotated notes, feels like a foreign concept to me and has challenged me to think differently about how I do research and scholarly writing.
Another insight that has emerged throughout this Full Sail journey, is the fact that in the traditional model of academic research and publishing, most researchers have no clue how many people read their work or consider it valuable. Sure I can use the Social Science Citation Index to get some data about how many times a paper has been cited in someone else's published writings, but that number doesn't tell me how many other people have viewed my work or had my thoughts influence their thinking about the subject. I have been amazed by the emotional impact that posting a blog has had on me, especially when I look at the statistics and see that 3000+ people have read an entry that I posted less than a week ago. I still don't know how my writing has influenced how people think, but the fact that 3000 people cared enough about the topic to click on the link to my blog, has opened my eyes to the power that the Web has to build knowledge and spread influence.
I don't know whether or not I will choose to use Diigo beyond the requirements for this class, but I am willing to give it a try and see if I can use it to increase my productivity and effectiveness throughout the action research project. I am also curious to read about how others are using this tool, especially those in the program who are growing up digital after 50, like me. Stay tuned for future postings on my reaction to using Diigo in my research.
