Jen e-blogger

Now why would I want to do that?

You wouldn’t be the first person to ask that question! At first you might wonder about its use, but the more web features you use, the more useful it becomes.

iGoogle allows you to to choose the things that you find useful or fun on a web search page of your own. Best of all… it helps to keep track of your Personal Learning Network (PLN).

I have my Twitter feeds, emails, Blog feeds, Facebook etc all feeding into my igoogle page. I can see what is going on in my world at a glance!

It offers the ability to create a personalised iGoogle page that gives ‘you at-a-glance’ access to information from Google and across the web. On this self-designed page, you can choose and organise content such as:

-Your email account
-Headlines from Google News and other 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
-Google Book Search
Before completing any of the tricks below, you’ll need to start a Google account using an email address and password, just go to the “sign in” link at the top right of the google home page and you will find the link to get your account.

iGoogle

Go to iGoogle (log in if you have to) and you’ll see your new iGoogle home page. Now you can customise it. You can add tabs if you wish and categorise the things you want on each tab if you’d like to.

You can also search for a gadget to add to your home page, or try adding the following gadgets:

• Google Map Search gadget
• Google Book Search gadget
• One of the Facebook gadgets
• Google Docs and Spreadsheet gadget

More help and tips:

• More help on setting up Google products by Sue Waters
• How do I personalise iGoogle?
• iGoogle instructions and tips
• iGoogle problem solving

What next?

Now that you have set up your iGoogle page. You can subscribe to this blog in Google Reader and be notified of the feeds on your iGoogle page.You can find instructions for setting up a feed reader in iGoogle here: How to set up a feed reader

Once you have a feed reader set up (like  Google Reader ), it’s time to add some individual subscriptions. These notes will help you in creating individual subscriptions within iGoogle.

Now isn’t that exciting?

How useful is iGoogle to you? Let me know by posting a comment.

Lastly… practice subscribing to some blogs which interest you.