Personal Portals/Homepages

Personal portals allow individuals to construct an internet browser homepage (default page) with tools and links that are relevant and regularly used. Most are private pages for the individual logging on, Pageflakes has a “public” option that allows individuals to share their portal pages.

Tools:

• iGoogle (http://www.google.com/ig)
• MyYahoo (http://my.yahoo.com/)
• Pageflakes (http://www.pageflakes.com/)
• Netvibes (http://www.netvibes.com/)

Resources iGoogle…Another Reason to Love Google (http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1033) Using Pageflakes as a Student Portal (http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/using-pageflakes-as-student-portal/)

How might you use Personal Portals in Scholarship?
Construct specific portal pages for individual projects to keep track of your work, internet resources, etc.
Use portals to share online references for public presentations.
Use portals as starting points for presentations with a lot of online content.

How might you use Personal Portals in Teaching?
Construct specific portal pages for course resource (consider making public for students to access as well)
Have student construct so that they connect all the online resources for one course in one area

How might your students use Personal Portals in their lives?
More readily keeping tabs (and links) available for internet use
Have access to the same internet “homepage” on public computers