Because I became so enthusiastic about exploring new tools on the Intertnet, I thought I would try out Diigo. For the ones, who haven’t heard about it yet, Diigo is a social bookmarking website which combines a number of really useful tools and tasks into a simple interface. It has various features like bookmarks, which can be saved locally or to several popular online favorites-sharing services, web page saving, with annotation and tagging capabilities, a blog publishing tool and a search toolbar.
It is accessible through a toolbar, which you can simply download. To bookmark a page, you simply click the "Diigo" button on the toolbar. It allows users to add highlights and sticky notes to any page they read. Users can highlight text from the page (multiple sections or an entire page)to save it with the bookmark. Diigo also lets users share those bookmarks with other people, because there is a tab that lets them email the bookmark. It has also a ''forwarding'' feature which allows users to send full pages (even multiple) and annotations.
I like Diigo because, like the team at Diigo says, it turns the entire web into a writable, participatory and interactive media. Sharing bookmarks is easy and fast. I used Mendeley until now, but I will really consider also using this tool from now on. It is a little more complicated than Mendeley at first (maybe because I am so used to the latter), but it is definitely worth trying it out. If you are not convinced yet, visit their page, where you can take a tour.
ponedeljek, 31. maj 2010
nedelja, 30. maj 2010
More than a million Slovenians on the Internet, half of them on Facebook
Today's post probably won't be so interesting for non-Slovenian blog readers, but I came across data about the use of Facebook in Slovenia, that I found interesting and would like to share.
A Slovenian internet research called MOSS is reporting that in Slovenia there are 1.094.814 Internet users (in April). This data probably doesn't mean anything if you don't know how many inhabitants we have – well, on 1.1.2010 we had 2.046.796 inhabitants, so the number means that there are 53% of Slovenians using the Internet.
MOSS reports only about the use of Slovenian web sites, so you cannot find Facebook in their statistics, but you can find the data on the Web Information Company Alexa and on Facebakers. Alexa reports that the top three sites, used by Slovenians are Google, Facebook and Youtube. Facebakers reports there are currently 575.920 Slovenians using Facebook - 287.020 males and 276 340 females. From this data we can see that there are almost half of Slovenian Internet users on Facebook and the number is growing as we speak.
You can find a lot of other information about the use of Facebook on Facebakers (and not only for Slovenia, but for other countries as well) – for example user growth, user age distribution, male/female user ratio and so on. I encourage you to see it, if you are interested – the results, that can be found there, are very interesting.
A Slovenian internet research called MOSS is reporting that in Slovenia there are 1.094.814 Internet users (in April). This data probably doesn't mean anything if you don't know how many inhabitants we have – well, on 1.1.2010 we had 2.046.796 inhabitants, so the number means that there are 53% of Slovenians using the Internet.
MOSS reports only about the use of Slovenian web sites, so you cannot find Facebook in their statistics, but you can find the data on the Web Information Company Alexa and on Facebakers. Alexa reports that the top three sites, used by Slovenians are Google, Facebook and Youtube. Facebakers reports there are currently 575.920 Slovenians using Facebook - 287.020 males and 276 340 females. From this data we can see that there are almost half of Slovenian Internet users on Facebook and the number is growing as we speak.
You can find a lot of other information about the use of Facebook on Facebakers (and not only for Slovenia, but for other countries as well) – for example user growth, user age distribution, male/female user ratio and so on. I encourage you to see it, if you are interested – the results, that can be found there, are very interesting.
Slovenian elementary school pupils and their internet use
Last month I and my two colleagues did a research about Slovenian elementary school pupils and their Internet use. It was for our exam research project in the shape of an article for some other course, and because it dealt with such topic, I would like to present some interesting findings here.
Our research question that we tried to answer was: To what extent are elementary school pupils acquainted with the Internet as a tool for education and to what extent do they use it as such. We interviewed 5 pupils, ranging from 11 to 14 years, 5 parents and 3 school teachers. Of course it isn’t a very representative study, but nevertheless, the results were very interesting and they gave us an idea, how the internet is used by this demographic group.
The interviews showed us that pupils do spend time on the Internet, but use it more for private purposes and not for education. They use tools like Google, Messenger, Facebook and game sites. They use it in a lesser extent for education, mainly for finding pictures and information for their reports. They also use Wikipedia and sites, where they can find book reviews for home reading assignments. They are aware of some risks that can be found on the Internet, mostly they mentioned viruses, talking to strangers and giving their personal information.
Their parents are also aware of the risks/dangers, but they trust their children, so they have no bigger restrictions. They don’t forbid them to watch any content, mostly they just limit their time spent on the Internet.
The teachers think positively about using the Internet for educational purposes, but have limits in the shape of school curriculums, so they can’t teach the children basic computer and Internet skills as much as they would like. They think the children’s parents are the ones that should teach them.
All-in-all, we found out that internet literacy in Slovenian elementary schools is weak, so is the children’s Internet use for educational purposes. Attempts of the teachers to teach them the proper use of the internet is inadequate and so is the parents’ involvement in teaching the children Internet literacy. The children gain their first Internet experiences all by themselves or with the help of their peers. Not all teachers realize how important internet literacy is and will be in the future – the Internet could be a really good source and tool in the process of education, but there are no clear guidelines for teaching internet literacy set in Slovenia, which consecutively means that the potential of the Internet as a educational tool is neglected. And because of this, all three sides loose – the parents, the teachers and mostly the teachers.
We can just hope that this will change soon.
Our research question that we tried to answer was: To what extent are elementary school pupils acquainted with the Internet as a tool for education and to what extent do they use it as such. We interviewed 5 pupils, ranging from 11 to 14 years, 5 parents and 3 school teachers. Of course it isn’t a very representative study, but nevertheless, the results were very interesting and they gave us an idea, how the internet is used by this demographic group.
The interviews showed us that pupils do spend time on the Internet, but use it more for private purposes and not for education. They use tools like Google, Messenger, Facebook and game sites. They use it in a lesser extent for education, mainly for finding pictures and information for their reports. They also use Wikipedia and sites, where they can find book reviews for home reading assignments. They are aware of some risks that can be found on the Internet, mostly they mentioned viruses, talking to strangers and giving their personal information.
Their parents are also aware of the risks/dangers, but they trust their children, so they have no bigger restrictions. They don’t forbid them to watch any content, mostly they just limit their time spent on the Internet.
The teachers think positively about using the Internet for educational purposes, but have limits in the shape of school curriculums, so they can’t teach the children basic computer and Internet skills as much as they would like. They think the children’s parents are the ones that should teach them.
All-in-all, we found out that internet literacy in Slovenian elementary schools is weak, so is the children’s Internet use for educational purposes. Attempts of the teachers to teach them the proper use of the internet is inadequate and so is the parents’ involvement in teaching the children Internet literacy. The children gain their first Internet experiences all by themselves or with the help of their peers. Not all teachers realize how important internet literacy is and will be in the future – the Internet could be a really good source and tool in the process of education, but there are no clear guidelines for teaching internet literacy set in Slovenia, which consecutively means that the potential of the Internet as a educational tool is neglected. And because of this, all three sides loose – the parents, the teachers and mostly the teachers.
We can just hope that this will change soon.
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