Tag Archives: iGoogle

Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning

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Appreciating the value of using a personalized Start Page is a bit like explaining the power of RSS because you need to experience it first hand. So let me show you how to set up your own iGoogle page and how I use my personalized Start Page.

Importance of Personal Learning Networks (PLN)

Alix E. Peshette and Vicki Davis comments on Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page? highlighted the need to emphasize the importance of Personalized Start Pages as part of our own and our students Personal Learning Network (PLN) — check out my PLN yourself website to learn how to build your own PLN.  

As Vicki says teaching students how to set up their own PLE

is one of the most useful skills that one can teach students and most importantly, keeps them focused and saves time!

Setting Up Your iGoogle Page

  1. Create an gmail account. Gmail is Google’s free webmail that you can access from any computer, anywhere. Ideally use a login name that people can identify easily as being you e.g. mine is my name with the s missing from the end of waters.
  2. Go to Google and click on Sign in and sign in using your gmail account.Image of where to sign in to Google
  3. Click on iGoogle and tick the items you want to add to your iGoogle page (don’t stress you can add and remove items whenever you want).Image of setting up iGoogle page
  4. Set iGoogle as your default home in your web browser i.e. whenever you open up your web browser it will automatically loads your iGoogle page.
  5. If you use Internet Explorer 7, FireFox or Flock you can set it up so several web pages load in separate tabs as homepages. At work we use IE 6 so my solution is Internet Explorer homepage is my College Intranet and FireFox homepage is my iGoogle page (here is more information on web browsers). Image of setting iGoogle as homepage
  6. Set your iGoogle theme i.e. appearance. I like to regularly change my theme to reflect my moods (keeps me happy).Image of setting iGoogle Themes
  7. Add more stuff to your page by click on Add stuff link and searching for widgets (gadgets) that interest you. Image of how to add stuff
  8. You edit settings of your Gadgets by clicking on the drop down arrow. Click on the cross to delete a gadget from your iGoogle page.Image of how to edit and delete gadgets
  9. Remember you can also add more Tabs to your iGoogle page (means you can organise your work into different categories) and share Tabs with others.Image of how to share tabs

My iGoogle Page

Here’s what I currently have on my iGoogle page (which is only viewable to me by logging in with my gmail account).

1. Gmail

My preferred email is now my gmail account and this gmail gadget means all my latest emails are displayed on my iGoogle page plus I can click on the links to easily compose new mail message or access my inbox.Image of Google reader gadget

2. Google Reader

I use Google Reader for subscribing to RSS feeds e.g. blog subscriptions, forums. The Google Reader gadget means I can checkly check latest feeds directly on my iGoogle page or click on the link to open up and read the items inside Google Reader.

3. Weather

This is Google’s weather gadget which I set up to display local weather forecast — not always correct :( .

4. Date, Time and Meetings

Tad absent minded (extreme understatement) when it comes to anything to do with dates so need lots of reminders:

5. Google Bookmarks

I use the Google Bookmarks gadget to store bookmarks that I can access on any computer anywhere but don’t want other people to be able to access e.g. links to my work email, home email, login links to my blogs and websites.

6. RSS GadgetsImage of Custom RSS gadget

I use the Customise RSS Gadget to bring in posts from the Comment Challenge from Technorati RSS feed for Comment 08 onto my iGoogle page so I can easily click on a link to read and comment on the posts.

Plus I also use the Simple RSS gadget to bring the RSS feeds from comments tracked using Cocomment and:

  1. Tagged with comment08
  2. Shared with Comment Challenge Group

Image of Simple RSS gadgetI have the Simple RSS Gadget set so it displays title and description so that I can read all the comments directly on my iGoogle page and click on link at the bottom of the comment if I want to add my comment.

7. Sticky Notes

My Sticky Note gadget means I can write a quick note on the gadget for all those times I’ve lost my pens or when I need easy access to email addresses.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I like using iGoogle because of its nice integration with all the other Google products I use e.g. maps, documents, gmail, reader. Please remember that the other Personalized Start pages can be used similar to iGoogle and are better for sharing with groups e.g. your students than iGoogle (check out Grace Kat’s PageFlake for her classes, Mike Ball’s NetVibes page for teaching others how to use NetVibes and Mr. Bakins ESL PageFlake — link supplied by Sheryl A. McCoy).

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

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Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?

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Are you making your life harder or easier? Do you have to visit multiple websites in the morning to catch up on important information or does opening up your browser bring it to you?

Let me show you, as part of our best of Web 2.0 series, how I and others use Personalized Start Pages to bring information to us.

What Are Personalized Start Pages

The idea of a personalised start page (some call them Personalized Homepages) is to bring all the content you consume on a daily basis onto the one page. It’s all about convenience, saving time and providing what you want in one handy location — which you can access on any computer anywhere. They’re called personalized because we can customize our start page to our own personal preferences and needs.Image of Start page logos

Examples of start pages are iGoogle, NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage. They all use two components: feeds and widgets (widgets are mini web applications that you can put onto your website). Please note Pageflakes widgets are called Flakes and iGoogle widgets are known as Gadgets.

The feed component means that you can use the RSS feed from websites such as your favorite blogs to feed their latest posts onto your start page. Widgets lets you run cool applications like email, weather, world clock, to-do lists, sticky notes, bookmarks on your start page.

Popularity of Start Pages

Several in my twitter network choose their start page in their top 3 indispensable Web 2.0 tools – Sue Hickton, John . Curry, Awyatt included iGoogle; Graham Wegner listed Pageflakes and Mike Romard likes NetVibes.

Start pages were included in Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list (compiled from the top 10 learning tools by 155 learning professionals) and ranked:

  • 15th for iGoogle
  • 31st for PageFlakes
  • 43rd for NetVibes
  • Protopage didn’t make the top 100 list.

Choosing Your Start Page

Each start page has its pros and cons; your choice depends on how you want to use it.

The biggest difference is that NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage all provide you the option to create:

  1. Private pages – only you can view what is on your private pages
  2. Groups pages – you can share the page with a group of people
  3. Public public pages – viewable by anyoneImage of Sharing a Tab

Whereas iGoogle focuses mainly on your personal needs and you can’t create public pages to share content.  However you can share tabs with a group using email.

iGoogle is my favourite start page and is my default home in my web browser.  My next post will show you why I use iGoogle and how to set up your own iGoogle but in the meantime check out these examples on how the public NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage are used:

1. NetVibes

Vicki Davis (Cool Cat Teacher) likes to use NetVibes for checking all her students spaces from a project with one quick look. Here is an example of a NetVibes page Vicki created for educators to promote Advocates for Digital Citizenship, Safety, and Success.

Another example is Crimson Connect which is a student run web portal for Harvard Students.

2. PageFlakes

Technobabble created The Giver PageFlake for her English 7 class who are reading the novel The Giver. While the elearning Guild Annual Gathering 2008 Conference and Expo used the AG08 PageFlake to bring together the content being generated by their conference.

3. ProtoPage

Elearning07 conference protopage is an example of a protopage created for sharing information on a conference program with participants.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

Are you using a Start Page? If so, which one and why?  We would love to check out examples of start pages used with students.  If you have any examples, can you please share?

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