Looking for Good Web 2.0 Research Tools

I'm doing research for a large writing project and find that many of my sources are digital: interview notes, web pages, pdfs, audio files... Does anyone know of really good Web 2.0 tools that allow you to manage your notes, highlight digital files, etc. This what I've tried so far:
Delicious--ok for tagging, but I'm not highlighting
Diigo--let's me tag, bookmark, and highlight... but I can't highlight pdfs
Google docs--let's me create some collaborative files, but the outline functions aren't as nice as MS Word and it doesn't easily collapse and expand notes.

My ideal:
A way to organize all my notes for easy search, collapse and expand. Organize sources for easy retrieval with highlights and notes. Any ideas?

Tags: research, tools

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Permalink Reply by Audrey Hill on August 8, 2008 at 12:41pm

evernote might be helpful to you

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Quigley on August 9, 2008 at 5:00am

Karen,

I make extensive use of Google Notebook. It does all of what you say. You can create as many "Notebooks" as you like, search the note books, expand and collapse notes, add comments to notes, etc. Not only do I use it for my own sources, but since it is shareable, I have all my Comp II students create one for an annotated bibliography for hte project. They then share their notebooks with me so I can keep tabs on how their research is going.

Quig

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Permalink Reply by Audrey Hill on August 9, 2008 at 7:51am

Dan,

Can you expand on your use of Google Notebooks for your Comp II students. Would it be possible to see an example of one to get ideas for how to use them in my classroom?

Audrey

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Quigley on August 11, 2008 at 4:05pm

Hi Audrey,

Well, unfortunately, since I had 28 students and I was trying to clean up my google notebook collection, I "unshared" all of my student notebooks from the spring. However, I did create a "test" note book as if I were a not too ambitious freshman in college starting a paper on Hawthorne. If you send me an e-mail address, I'll "share" the notebook with you and I can show you how I use it in the notebook itself.

Quig

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Permalink Reply by Audrey Hill on August 11, 2008 at 11:02pm

Quig..

Absolutely. Reach me at audhilly@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Audrey

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Permalink Reply by samccoy on August 11, 2008 at 11:33pm

While Google notebook is very cool, it sounds to me as if you need a place to access, document and develop your research in a manageable place where you can keep track of edits, history and other information that relates to a typical research project.
I would think a wiki would fit your needs, and wikispaces is one of the most accessible wikis w/free accounts for educators. In the educator accounts, there are no ads. You control how much sharing goes on and how private you want it to be.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Ketsdever on September 13, 2008 at 1:30pm

Why not a wiki? Say PB Wiki or Wetpaint or wikispaces?

(sorry didn't see the whole convo--well at least this provides two alternatives to wikispaces. I've noticed that educational initiatives seem to use wikispaces more so than the other 2--which I think are slightly more standard in the enterprise 2.0/web 2.0/organization 2.0 space. although, that may just be my perception)

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Permalink Reply by Gordon White on October 9, 2008 at 12:49pm

As awesome as NING is, It is rather unfortunate that it does not offer a full fledge Wiki yet. For me, this should be the top priority. The "notes" feature is cool, but lacks the multiple-user access that a Wiki allows.

Drop NING a note - tell them you want a WIKI!
:-)

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Ketsdever on September 13, 2008 at 1:53pm

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the range of solutions provided by Zoho:
http://www.zoho.com/

I think they are a freemium service.

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Permalink Reply by David Huston on October 8, 2008 at 7:12pm

Karen:

This is a particular interest of mine. I have put together a web site with all my info and a description of how I walk students through the steps of creating what I call "M4 Projects"--for Multi Media Mind Mapping.

I am in the middle of creating an M4 Project describing the rationale and process of creating M4 Projects. Stay tuned.

Here is the site. I'd be pleased for any feedback anyone might offer.

http://grou.ps/m4projects/blogs

David Huston
Laurel School
Shaker Hts OH