Announcing Diigo Educator Accounts!

For the past several weeks, existing Diigo users who are educators have been piloting the Teacher Console. So what is this? In short, it allows teachers to create students accounts without the need for email, something that is typically a stumbling block for many Web 2.0 sites given that many younger students do not have email addresses.

"Students on Diigo? Isn't that a social networking site?"

Yes, it is, but safegaurds have been put in place with the student accounts that limit the social aspects of the program. First, student accounts are automatically placed in a private class group with the teacher everyone in the group is automatically "friended" as well. The Diigo messaging system will allow students to communicate, however students are only allowed to message withing their class. Also, student profiles are only viewable by other students in the group and by the teacher, so their exposure to other Diigo users is limited.

So, how do you get a Diigo Educator Account? First, you'll need to apply here if you are an exsiting Diigo user. Once approved, the accounts will work as follows:

• A teacher can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
• Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
• To protect the privacy of students, student accounts have special settings which only allow their teachers and classmates to contact them and access their personal profile information.
• Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.

For more information about the Diigo Educator accounts, please visit any of the following links:

• Diigo announcement on their blog.
• FAQ Page for Teacher Account
• Diigo Educator Getting Started