What service did you choose? Why?
I am familiar with both Netvibes and iGoogle and have also used myYahoo. I tend to agree with the "mashable" article in that Netvibes is the one to beat. Although, I really like the features iGoogle has to offer as well. Netvibes allows you to customize your dashboard by topic and it's visual appearance is appealing with nice organization and clean lines making it quick and easy to locate information or sections you may be looking for in a hurry.
What are some of the items you included on your custom homepage?
I like to include the weather, driving directions, news events for my area as well as world news, email access and a favorites section which includes links to some of the sites/pages I visit most often.
What kind of widgets or links could you add to your homepage that would enhance instruction?
I could tailor my homepage to fit the needs of my students for the topic or cluster I work on with them. For example, when we are studying the Stock Market, there are several sites we sometimes toggle between to aid us in our research and assist us with real time findings. A "Stock Market" section could easily be added to include links to the sites we find most helpful during this instruction. As we move on to study new topics, the homepage could easily be altered to keep current with supporting our learning.
You make some good points about being able to use a customized homepage to keep up with current topics for students. -- I think you may find a bookmarking tool such as delicious (in an upcoming "thing") a useful way to do this.
ReplyDelete