Thing 21: Fun with Pageflakes

I had a blast working with Pageflakes. I found all sorts of “flakes” that would work on a page for my students to use. Check out my page! I added several features that are more fun than educational, but they are still great! One fun feature is the radio. I tuned the radio to Radio Disney. I know that a lot of my students like to listen to that station. I also added a virtual pet frog. I named him Hopparoota! He follows your mouse around!

I did add some educational tools as well. My favorite tool is the I-pod that is tuned to my students’ podcasts from their blog. How awesome is that? I also added a clock, a calculator, and a calendar. Another fun feature is the chat board (a message board). This is a place to post messages for my students. They can also ask questions. There is a section where I can post my bookmarks. I can even upload them from delicious! Students can also see the weather forecast and postings of events geared towards children and families here in Atlanta. There is a to-do list feature that we can use to collaborate on finishing projects.

This is a great organizational tool. It provides my students (and their parents) with a home page for information, tools, and communication. Some parents complain that there are so many podcasts, links, and blogs to keep up with; however, Pageflakes helps to resolve that problem. All of the blogs and links that students may need throughout the year can be organized here, and parents that are not as tech-savvy as others can have a constant feed of podcasts. It provides information that they need in a centralized location, and it encourages the chldren to explore the links on the page.

There are a couple of things I am still exploring. First, Radio Disney doesn’t work on Firefox. I think that the radio goes back to the default station settings when using a browser other than Explorer, so I may remove the radio before sharing this with my students. Secondly, I want to know more about the message board feature. I want to prevent outside people from posting messages. The “share” feature may take care of this. Rather than publishing the page to the world, I could share it with the families in my class.

I think it would be great to use Pageflakes to create a page for the third grade teachers. We could share our bookmarks, post ideas, collaborate on to-do lists, and add events to the calendar.

I really enjoyed working on my first Pageflake, and I look forward to discovering lots of uses for this great resource!