I make use of personal web portals and while I was aware of Pageflakes, I have always classified it as another personal portal. By personal portal, I mean a web page hosted on a remote server that users can easily customize with “widgets” (or whatever the host companies calls function specific modules that can be selected and positioned on a page) to serve as their browser home page. The idea is to bring together information sources (RSS feeds for news, weather, blogs, images), email, commonly used links, etc. in one location.
Now, I learn that PageFlakes can be used to create a “page” for sharing and some special flakes have been included in a version for educators/students (Mashable). If you don’t understand what this might mean, recognize that it allows a user (teacher/student) to create a page that can include powerful functions you don’t have to understand how to create yourself. Select a “”flake” from a long list of possibilities, position it on the page where you think it is most appropriate, and edit flake “parameters” to adjust the function of that flake to your own needs.
I have created a sample Page for your exploration (http://teacher.pageflakes.com/markgrabe).
Access control is an important issue when educators involve students with online resources. PageFlake can be private, public, or available to a designated group of participants. I have not included examples of flakes that might be among the more useful for classroom group (e.g., blog, notepad) because I must make my example public for you to be able to access the page. Unless I am missing something, I could not determine how I would turn off “comments” and similar response opportunities under these conditions.
One flake allowing personal content creation even under the public condition is the “anything flake”. This flake amounts to a simple web page authoring tool (see upper left-hand corner of my page). The tool is very easy to use and saves a fully functional html “mini” page that is really part of the full page.
Some have already developed simple tutorials for PageFlakes (e.g., PageFlakes for Education Wiki). The best way to understand this environment is probably to explore (http://teacher.pageflakes.com) as a personal portal and then, if this proves to be a productive experience, progress to the creation of pages for sharing.
