iGoogle...and so do my students

My students are always frustrated by the lack of customization allowed by the computers at school.  Some of them even go so far as rearranging the icons and selecting a picture from their docs folder as their wallpaper (each and every time they log on).

Finally, I wised up and put them on iGoogle (we already had accounts) and let them have a tab that they are free to organize ALMOST any way they want.  At first most of them thought that meant that they needed 243 widgets.  We agreed that six was sufficient for now.

We also have a "School" tab that keeps their docs, cal, reader, and email.  I want to add delicious and flickr next week.

I also want to use what I learned from  David Warlick's IT Summit presentation on student use of RSS.  We are currently studying Shakespeare in ELA, and the RCMP in social studies.  Our next science unit is on predicting weather.  I hope to add tabs for these topics and then discard them when we are done.

(Not my first choice of theme, but it's not about me)