Go to igoogle. You should see a box below the normal Google search box that says, "Create your own homepage in under 30 seconds." It really is that easy. Check a couple boxes, put in your home info and then click on "See your page." Now the fun really begins. Start with "Change theme from..." There are pages and pages of choices. Remember you are an educator and should choose from the more appropriate ones! Once you pick one, you'll need to close the boxes with the choices using the x in the corner. Ok, now scroll down and let's check out what's on your igoogle page. See the box for Gmail? Let's personalize that. If you have an account, sign in. If you don't, create one- you'll be needing it later on. (the word recognition part can be tricky- just keep trying!)
What else is on your basic igoogle page? These individual boxes are all gadgets. You can keep the Gmail gadget, or get rid of it. After all, there's already a link at the top for Gmail. To do this, access the dropdown menu by clicking on the down arrow along the top of the box. Minimize keeps it, but it'll just be a bar, rather than a "preview" box. Feel free to use "Delete this gadget." If you like it, check out what's available under "You might also like". So what did google give you besides Youtube, CNN, weather, date and time? Scores? Recipes? Celebrity pics? TV and movie listings? A comic strip? Work of art? News stories of interest to you? Chess game to play with friends? Delete anything you don't like, or minimize to see the stuff you do. You can rearrange at will by clicking and dragging.
You may be thinking to yourself, "How is this going to help me teach?" Well, it's not in these personalized touches. That's just for fun. But the little link at the top, in your personalized theme, that says "Add Stuff" will lead you to a world of new tools. (This, by the way, is where you can find Random Cat photos.) Search and add what interests you. For example, I also have on my page: Fat Loss Tips, Financial tips, Lava Lamp, Shakespearian insult, my blog (we'll learn how to do this later), Facebook, New Book Releases, Quote of the Day, Mapquest Driving Directions, Euless Doppler Radar, Reminders From God, Googledocs (something we'll cover later as well), movie times for my zip code, and of course, Shakespearian Insults. Other gadgets of interest to you might be: Dictionary Word of the Day, chatting features, To Do List, coupons, any game you can think of, Happy Puppy Photos (for those of you not into cats), new music, puzzles and riddles, movie trailers, random facts, optical illusions, virtual pets, Disney pics, webcams from all over the world, and who knows what else! It's really mind-blowing. As you search, you'll see a lot of gadgets that are simply feeds to a blog. We'll cover that later, but you can go ahead and add it now if you want. It's as simple as clicking on "Add It Now" button. Now, sometimes when you go back to your igoogle homepage (link at top on left), something is required of you to activate this new gadget. Or something might get blocked here at school :) Or maybe it should have been but wasn't. Yeah, go ahead and delete that gadget!
I can't begin to name everything out there! Feel free to check out the link that says "Take a Video Tour". It'll give you tons more instruction, along with great visual aids to show you what I can't describe so well, even with my wordiness! Feel free to make igoogle your home page. It's as simple as going to Tools-Internet Options-Use Current.
Now blog. Can you begin to see how some of this can be used in class? Tell us about it. What was your favorite gadget? Recommendations? Please write at least a paragraph- the 5 sentence kind! And have more fun with it!
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