iGoogle

By way of example below is my own iGoogle account with explanatory notes below. If Bernard and co goes with this each person would have their own which would be populated with things appropriate to the course but also personalised to their own tastes.

1. A theme can be set. I have chosen this one assigned to my post code showing different times of the day. As you can see I took this screen shot not long after sunrise.
2. Tabs can be added and in my example I have “other stuff” in three other tabs besides the home page
3. This is a set of bookmarks pertinent to my daily online life. This way I can set iGoogle as my home page and be on any site I need within one click
4. This is my g-Mail email account which I have chosen to show a preview of the most recent messages. Opens out into a full e-mailer. Participants may elect to have this forwarded to another email address they may have but the teams contact with them is though this g-Mail account
5. This is my files store in which there are documents and spread sheets. It previews the most recently accessed ones but opens up to the full document store. Documents could be shared with the participants for viewing only or could be opened up for collaboration.
6. The various email groups I am either a member of or managing.
7. The RSS feed of a particular website I am watching. This shows the most recent postings to the site. The content of many sites can be subscribed to in this way and I’m suggesting that the participants subscribe to a course blog.
8. The way I see this working is that participants are given their accounts and they add to them the items above or whatever is deemed to be the necessary components for the course. After that they could add whatever else they wish that appeals to them. This no 8 shows a couple of widgets I’ve added that are useful to me such as a dictionary and a currency converter. Many widgets are available.

Agenda for July 6th in Manchester with my sub agenda after item (iv)

i) Introductions
ii) Background to meeting
iii) Introducing the leadership programme and its needs
iv) iGoogle - What can it do? Is it right for us?
a) Brief look at Steve T's iGoogle account

b) Creation of multiple iGoogle accounts - How To

c) Creation of iGoogle account for all present
I propose 3 types/groups of iGoogle
1) researchers/observers (PRADSA)
2) Course leaders (Bernard etc)
3) Participants

d) Populating iGoogle

e) Creation of course blog and how to share bloging
rights and how to incorporate into iGoogle

f) evaluation, summing up

vi) AOB
vi) Next steps