iGoogle.com

 

Introduction

iGoogle is a service of Google which allows a user to create a customized start-up or ‘home’ page. Users can select from many different ‘themes’—nature, sports, animated themes, and recently added designs by professional artists. Users can select from a gallery of 1000s of ‘gadgets’ which deliver custom content to your desktop including local weather, sports scores, news, comics, quotations, business, health—you name it, there’s probably a gadget! Tabs are also available which allow you to create multiple pages in your account—maybe a personal page, a page for each course you teach, or pages arranged by content. Aggregators like iGoogle push technology to you so you don’t have to go looking for it.

Other similar ‘start-up’ page applications include: Pageflakes, My Yahoo!, and Netvibes.

  

Vocabulary

 

Aggregator-- An aggregator, is a software application, webpage or service that automatically collects updated publications from a number of sources, such as RSS and other XML feeds from blog, audioblog or vlog websites that the user has signed up to. wsgfl.westsussex.gov.uk/redirect/

Gadget—Generally used to refer to a technical term whose name can’t be remembered. Used here to represent a mini software application that can be embedded in a web page to deliver customized content—like email, photos, weather, news. Other names for gadgets are widgets and plug-ins.

Push Technology--The delivery of web based content to the users desktop without the need for the user to visit a site to download information. sensacom.com/web_glossary.html

 

 

Quick Start Guide

1. Click to create a free Google Account (use your existing email).

2. Go to google.com/ig for your personal start-up page

3. Click on ‘Select Theme’ to decorate your page

4. Click on ‘Add Stuff’ to add gadgets.

5. Move your gadgets around on the page by clicking and dragging.

6. Did you add a gadget you don’t want? Click on the ‘x’ to delete it.

7. Click on the minus, ‘-‘ to minimize the gadget.

8. What happens when you click on the gadget’s down arrow? Try all the options.

9. Click on ‘Add a Tab’ to add another page.

10. With the new tab, enter a subject like sports or news, and select ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ to see what happens

11. Check out ‘easter eggs’ in iGoogle.

    12. Make iGoogle the start-up page in your browser. In Mozilla, click on

        ‘Tools,’ then ‘options.’

  

Multimedia Resources (Presentation, Podcast, or Video)

YouTube video: iGoogle: A Mini Product Tour

 

In the Classroom

Michele’s CIT blog: iGoogle, reading strategies, and silent reading

The Saavy Teachers Digital Toolbox: iGoogle Home Page

Kids and Information Spaces: On the Stickiness of Widgets

Review

A start-up home page can increase teacher productivity, engage students, and ‘push’ information to users (instead of having to go search for it!). You and your students can build and decorate your homes, and create multiple tabs to organize information by course, project, content, and/or personal interest.

 

 

PRO	iGoogle is very easy to use
CON	Embedded content is only as good as the source
Bottom Line	Why search for information when it can be delivered to your screen?

 

Assignment

1. Create at least 2 tabs and select a theme for each.

o Personal Tab

o School Tab

2. Have fun finding gadgets and adding them!

3. On your school tab, add these gadgets (we’ll be using these in class):

o Google Reader

o Google Docs

o A ‘to-do’ list

o A Wikipedia search box

o And anything else you might use in class-- other content-area stuff

4. Add whatever you want on your personal page. Check out:

o A weather widget

o A calendar

o A news widget

o Driving Directions

5. Click on the ‘down arrow’ for a couple of your gadgets to see what happens.

6. We’ll have a handful of people share a cool gadget they found.

7. Make iGoogle your start-up page in Mozilla

o On the Menu Bar at the top of the screen, click on ‘Tools’, then ‘Options,’ Next the box, ‘Use Current Pages,’ and finally ‘OK.’