Interactive Information Networking Tools for Online Education


Ruth Markulis
Instructional Technologist
Center for Teaching and Learning
Published: January-February 2011

Category: » Online-pedagogy » Teaching-strategies

Introduction

Interaction and engagement are essential elements of education and represent key qualities that help students succeed in the classroom—particularly those that are online. This article examines interactive information networking tools, a category of tools that can aid in building interaction and engagement in the classroom. It discusses activities that can be developed and their potential benefits, and it provides a brief overview of one tool and links to a tutorial on how to use it.

What are Interactive Information Networking Tools?

Creating an engaging, interactive course online can be challenging. WebTycho assists with this challenge by providing multiple spaces where faculty and students can engage and interact with each other: conferences, study groups, feedback, private messaging, and announcements. But interaction and engagement can also happen outside these usual spaces through the use of interactive information networking tools.

Interactive information networking tools can help foster academic interaction and engagement and directly support UMUC learning community goals. These tools enable collaboration by allowing knowledge/information to flow in multiple directions (interactive); serve the information interests that are directly related to the needs and goals of the learning community—which may include students, faculty, and directors (information); and enable members of the learning community to forge new relationships and organize multiple groups based on common interests (networking). These tools are also social in that users jointly engage in making sense of and establishing meaning and relevance for external information as it relates to what is being discussed in the classroom.

Interactive information networking tools allow users to conduct scholarly research more efficiently than in the past. Instead of working alone and being limited to placing highlights and annotations in textbooks, students and scholars can now engage with numerous materials online and find others with similar interests and discuss ideas with them.

Interactive Information Networking with Diigo

Several tools fit into the interactive information networking category. Diigo is one such tool that is free and easy to use and can help enhance faculty-faculty, faculty-student, and student-student interactions.

Diigo began as a simple bookmarking tool that has evolved into an interactive information network where users can share Web-based resources and collaborate with each other. Its interface is organized into three areas that focus on research, sharing, and collaboration capabilities: 

  • My Library: Diigo’s My Library serves as the repository for a user’s collected online items; these items can be Web pages, images, videos, and more. Within My Library, users can bookmark and archive URLS, highlight text, and add public or private annotations in the form of page comments and sticky notes.
  • My Network: Using My Network, Diigo users can follow others who have similar interests and view their public bookmarks and annotations. Users can also organize contacts into friend lists or create subfolders for contacts according to discipline or research interests.
  • My Groups: With My Groups, Diigo users can create and manage groups that are ideal for sharing resources, problem solving, and creating new knowledge. Groups can be public or private. Group members can add annotations to the group’s bookmarks.

When creating an annotation in Diigo, users are prompted to provide a description for the bookmarked item and add tag words to help keep the library organized and easy to search by title, tag, URL, and full text. Diigo can help users analyze and arrange information in a meaningful manner, and it also allows other users to view, use, and assess that information. The ability to view and comment on the bookmarks, highlights, and annotations of others helps create a true learning community.

Sample Activities and Benefits

Faculty can develop relevant and engaging activities for students in a variety of curricula using an interactive information networking tool such as Diigo. Here are some ideas that can supplement regular classroom activities:

  • Current events conversation: Assign students to lead a weekly discussion about a news item that is related to what is being studied in class. Students would need to research the Web to find a relevant article, bookmark it, and then add various sticky notes to start a conversation with their classmates and keep it going throughout the week.
  • Group research project: Assign students to small groups within the tool so that they can easily share resources and highlight important facts or post sticky notes for each other about points of interest and other important information in these resources that will help them put their project together.
  • Research field trip: Create and organize bookmarks on a subject that is being studied in class, highlight pertinent information students should take note of, and leave sticky notes about tasks they should complete for each visited bookmark.
  • Draft feedback: Students can post drafts of a paper to the Web, add the bookmark to the class group in Diigo, and invite their student peers (and/or instructor) to comment on their writing and/or research thus far.

Activities such as those mentioned above have several potential benefits for students across all disciplines, including:

  • Development of critical thinking skills
  • Sharing of and engagement with instructional material and concepts during a course—and possibly past the course end date
  • Practice of thoughtful and critical reading of the Web
  • Development of effective communication and teamwork skills
  • Enhancement of rhetorical analysis and persuasion skills
  • Construction of new knowledge
  • Improvement of information literacy skills through finding and selecting scholarly sources, categorizing and annotating material, and writing correct citations

Interactive information networking tools can also be used for faculty-faculty interactions. Faculty can use the tools to share resources and collaborate with other instructors who share similar teaching/study interests, which may also assist them with class preparation and research. Directors may also find these tools useful for helping to ensure that their faculty are staying current.

Conclusion

Interactive information networking tools can assist with enhancing interaction and engagement in a variety of ways within an academic environment. They promote information sharing that is related to learning objectives and/or program outcomes. A tool such as Diigo can supplement existing classroom activities and help students and faculty alike build their skills in several areas.

If you are interested in using Diigo to enhance teaching and learning in your classroom, please see the accompanying Diigo Tutorial to get started.

About the Author(s)

Ruth Markulis joined the Center for Teaching and Learning as an Instructional Technologist in November of 2005. In her current position, Ruth manages the CTL Web site and teaches workshops for faculty in areas related to sound pedagogy and technology. Prior to that, Ruth worked for eight years as the Director of Staff Development and Training for Student Affairs at UMUC. In this position, she provided training for academic advisors and front-line staff. She also served as the Project Director for the Web-based Staff Development Training Project. As Project Director, Ruth participated in all aspects of the instructional design process, including designing the user interface, conducting usability testing, developing an iteration of the user interface, and gathering and formatting instructional content.

Ruth has also previously served as an Educational Coordinator for Maryland Public Television, where her responsibilities included providing the educational programming schedule for K-12 Services and College of the Air. In addition, she has taught all levels of adult education and special needs students. Ruth holds a Doctorate in Communications Design from the University of Baltimore.

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