Week One -- Google me this...

We're all familar with Google as the most recognized internet search engine, the dot.com darling that started in the creators' garage.

But they didn't just rest on their search engine product. They're also creating and collecting (they're always buying something) some of the most innovative web 2.0 tools out there. We're going to use iGoogle as our first playground.

When you posted a comment to this Blog, you had to create a Google account. This blog (by Blogger) is a Google product.

What we're going to use this week is iGoogle (I adore iGoogle). Think of it as your own personalized web page. You get to customize it to be anything you want and no one but you sees it. And as we go along you'll see how much fun it can be to centralize your interests onto one-easy-to-use page. All of the boxes represent "widgits" or "gadgets" -- pieces of web code that is embedded on a web page. We'll see gadget/widgits all over place as we go along. One example is the library's Instant Messaging (or "chat") page. We've embedded code on the page so a person can arrive there and start talking to us. If you have a minute, try it and say hi to us! When we launch a redesigned library page you'll see other instances of gadgets built into the page.

iGoogle is a fun place to start. Some of the gadgets you'll see are created by Google itself but many more are created by individuals who then make them available to everyone else. Facebook is another good example of third-party created applications. That's a piece of this whole "2.0" movement and open source projects.

Steps:

1. Go to the Google homepage - http://www.google.com/
2. Click on iGoogle in the upper right hand corner
3. Create your own iGoogle page
4. Practice dragging the various boxes around to arrange your page
5. Notice that you probably have multiple "tabs" (upper left) and create a new one
6. In the upper right, "select theme" and "add stuff" -- under "add stuff" try different searches based on things you like. Really into weather? -- look at all the "widgets" you can add. Like news? There are tons of different news widgets. Add them to your page.
7. Here are some of my favorite iGoogle gadgets - http://piercelearning.wetpaint.com/page/iGoogle

Extra credit:

1. Send a screen shot of your iGoogle page to me. When looking at your page hit the "print screen" button on your keyboard (that creates an image of what's currently on your screen). Paste it into an email you send to me.

Here's mine.....

Start looking at your page regularly. Make it the "home" page on a computer you use regularly.