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Week 5: Managing Information Overload with iGoogle

Page history last edited by sgrimes@... 15 years, 1 month ago

 

 

   . . . to the rescue

 

 

 

 

 

Exploration Exercise 

iGoogle offers the ability to create a personalized page that gives you at-a-glance access to your personalized portal to content and saves time by not having to navigate to multiple places to find your favorite bookmarks, blogs, journal updates, and much more.  IGoogle is a web presence on your computer and accessible from any Internet connected computer where you determine what information you want delivered to you via your iGoogle page.  According to Karmvar, iGoogle's personalization guru, "iGoogle is just one example of a "push search," the notion that Google can learn what you might want to look for and push it in your direction through RSS feeds and Google gadgets, little boxes of information that might give users a view of their e-mail inbox or local weather." 

 

Creating your own iGoogle page is a great strategy to manage information overload, save time, and optimize effective use of information technologies.  On this self-designed page, you can design, choose, and organize content such as the following:

  • Select a personalized design theme
  • Select from hundreds of gadgets from virtual aquariums, current news, clocks around the world, local weather.  See ALL the gadgets.
  • Embed other Web 2 products you create, e.g., VoiceThreads, slide shows, BubbleShares, Voix or Gizmoz talking avatars, and much more!
  • Your latest Gmail messages
  • RSS feeds, e.g., Joyce Valenza's NeverEndingSearch
  • Headlines from Google News and other top news sources
  • Weather forecasts, stock quotes, and movie showtimes
  • Bookmarks for quick access to your favorite sites from any computer
  • Your own section with content you find from across the web  

 

To see how an iGoogle page might look like, see a screenshot (links are not active) of Della Curtis' iGoogle page below.  Note the RSS feeds subscribed to such as Digital Reshift, Joyce Valenza's NeverEndingSearch, Center for Social Media as well as a VoiceThread and the talking Gizmoz zebra above.

.

 

  Application Exercise 

1.  First you will need to "sign up" for a Google account.  View the YouTube video for instructions. View the following videos uploaded to this wiki to get started.  Wait time needed for videos to appear.
 

2.  To build a foundation of understanding about iGoogle and save time, first check out the information and tips available at  iGoogle support page,  You will learn how to customize your iGoogle page with art themes, gadgets, and much more! 

3.  Starting building your iGoogle page . . you will have so much fun locating and adding gadgets to personalize your page and incoming information such as weather forecast for your region, time, quotes of the day, calendar, and MUCH more!  View this short video about gadgets (It is a downloaded YouTube video for viewing in BCPS; use your Internet browser back arrow to return to this wiki.)  Give time for it to upload to your browser.  :-)

 iGoogle_gadgets.

4.  All Google gadgets have a pull down menu that allow you to set "preferences."  After you add a few gadgets, experiment with the pull down menus.  View this short video about gadgets preferences. (It is a downloaded YouTube video for viewing in BCPS; use your Internet browser back arrow to return to this wiki.)  Give time for it to upload to your browser.  :-)

 iGoogle_gadgets_preferences.mov

5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to BACKUP your masterpiece! 

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 

Since your iGoogle page allows you to freely delete and add stuff, you might just make a "bad click"and delete everything.  Manually backup.  Keep" reading . . . 

Go to the top right hand corner of your iGoogle page and click MY ACCOUNT.  You will see your Personal Settings Page.  Go to the list of My Products to locate iGoogle. Click SETTINGS. See the screenshot below for saving/backup options

and an extra precaution to export your most recent iGoogle masterpiece.

 

6aUsing Your iGoogle to Subscribe to Content and News 

      End Wasting Time with Multiple-Site Searching to Keep Current

YouTube plugin error

 

 

6b.  Adding RSS Feeds to Your IGoogle Page

Check out How to Add An RSS Feed to Your i-Google Homepage  for detailed information.  Below are 123 directions to locate RSS feeds using Google Reader. 

6c.  TeacherTubeEducation Library Video on Adding Google Reader

       to Your iGoogle Page

 

YouTube plugin error

 

Finding RSS Feeds?  Jump Start List 

 

How to Find RSS Feeds  

School Library Journal RSS Feeds 
K-12 Education Library Information Science Google Directory of  RSS Feeds
K-12 Technology  ....................... National Public Radio RSS Feeds 
National Weather Service RSS Feeds  New York Times RSS Feeds 
   
   

 

Other Helpful iGoogle Resources

 

     i-Google Article
 
Comments from those who selected iGoogle as one of their
Top 10 Tools in 2008.  Learn why others are using iGoogle. 
 
 

 Official iGoogle Blog - What's New with iGoogle?
 

All Work and No Play . . .Adding Games and Fun Stuff to Your iGoogle

 

 

The How-to Manual That You Can Edit - iGoogle How-to's

 

 

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Reflection Exercise

Take stock of your iGoogle page.  Some questions you might want to ask yourself are as follows: 

  1. Have I added gadgets that are useful to my everyday information needs? 

    .

  2. Have I throughly scanned the gadget options available?  

    .

  3. Are there professional journals and websites that I need to add an RSS feed to my iGoogle page?  

    .

  4. Have I organized my iGoogle page so that it the most important information is easily accessible?  

     

Think about instructional uses of iGoogle.   Some questions you might want to consider are as follows:

  1. Would you encourage students to create their own iGoogle page?  If so, how could an iGoogle page help students with homework and research?

    .

  2. What might be some barriers to student use of iGoogle?   Is there a work-around?

 


Extension Exercise

Get MORE Info Savvy with ProQuest RSS!

 

     Keep current with newly added content to a ProQuest SEARCH string by

     choosing to create a RSS feed of your search results.  No need to go

     back to ProQuest for the same search - all new articles will come to you 

     via your iGoogle page.  See 123 directions below:

 

     First, go to the Office of Library Information Services portal to access

     ProQuest Education Journals.  (Top left, click apple icon.)  Perform a

     search and scan hits for relevancy.  If not, search again.  If yes, proceed

     to create an RSS feed using the screenshots 1 2 3.


 


 

  

Eureka!  Your personalized ProQuest search RSS feed is now accessible 

on your iGoogle page.  (Web 2.0 was my ProQuest search.)     
 

  

 

Bibliography

"A Conversation With Google's Personalization Guru; 'Push search' will let Google learn what you might want to look for and push it in your direction through RSS feeds and Google gadgets.(Sep Kamvar)(Interview)."  InformationWeek. (June 15, 2007): NA. Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Baltimore County Public Schools. 26 Dec. 2008 http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=SRC-1&docId=A165071398&source=gale&userGroupName=bcps&version=1.0.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments (3)

Roxanne Dean said

at 4:25 pm on Mar 30, 2009

I found that using the Delicious site to bookmark all of the new tools I have been using is a good way to get to them quickly. I also found the igoogle site to help as quick references and map tools for directions. It has info to add your own person hobbies too. Many of the gadgets are blocked at the school level so there is a limit. I do not plan on using this for elementary school students. This is more for older students.

psetser@... said

at 12:12 pm on Apr 12, 2009

Week 5
Okay, I am loving it! iGoogle that is. I spent way too much time selecting from the endless list of gadgets but managed to come up with a few favorites. I re-arranged the layout, added RSS feeds, and then sat back and enjoyed the moment. My page includes 'Word of the Day', Free iTunes, News, Teacher Tube, shopping list, pics, and of course, my To Do List. Still pondering the use of this app with my kidlets. But then again, this is just the beginning of a good thing.....

Laura Lagomarsino said

at 1:51 pm on Apr 16, 2009

I really like your description. I have a few of the google-apps you have, but I am missing out on the teacher tube one on my home page-so you turned me on to something new! Also I don't have the free itunes on mine! I have google-lust now...doesn't it speak volumes about how much input/multi-tasking we crave now...how much stimulii we are craving...through all the senses. This raises questions about processing to me...I want my students to have a balance of the input and then the necessary skills to differentiate the important from the unimportant (figure from ground...or 'big ideas' from among the facts presented) in their classwork.

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