LIveBinders vs Diigo Bookmarks

Lately thanks to my PLN, I have been experimenting with some new web 2.0 tools. (new to me that is!)  I put a question out  on the arted20 ning asking how to teach art history in the 21st century making it a non-lecture-based-watch-the-slides-go-by, interactive class.  There were many innovative responses as I mentioned in my previous post.  Theresa McGee, an art educator from Illinois and one of the keepers of the Teaching Palette website and blog,  shared her LiveBinder sites with me and a whole new way to save and organize web-based media was introduced. 

Like Diigo, LiveBinders allows you to bookmark and save sites that you find on the web.  Unlike Diigo,  LiveBinders gives you an actual visual copy of the website and it's content as if you've copied a paper page and put it into your 3-ring binder.  This is pretty awesome for a visual learner.  LiveBinders also allows you to upload documents, images, videos and more.  So your binder can become this wonderful, online, multimedia resource that can be shared with anyone...students, colleagues or your PLN.  The binder pages can be organized in tabs or sub-tabs just like a real binder.  All of the pages saved come in with the links and embedded content intact so you can view and click through from your binder. 

This video explains in 90 seconds how simple it is to use LiveBinders.

I still love Diigo, as a bookmarking and research tool.  I also think Diigo is fantastic for collaboration within groups, but being able to organize everything I'd want in a list or group into a binder that is available online is fantastic!

This is one more example of my PLN coming to my rescue and teaching me how to do something new on the web.  I think most of what I've learned and experimented with over the past couple of years has been because someone in my ning community or twitter feed has mentioned it and I've checked it out and been happy with the results.

I will be teaching Art History next year and I've already begun to organize my Art History binder online using LiveBinder It the simple tool button you install on your toolbar.  Thanks to the many resources shared with me by my PLN I've got a rich collection of resources to use with my students next year.  I think I will have students keep their own LiveBinders as a way to organize notes and other materials for the class.  It will be a great way to personalize their own experience of art history. Eventually I'll make my binder a public one, but for now I've made it private while I continue to learn the tool and develop the collection.