FOC on Pageflakes

[Mike Bogle]

Hi all,

I've just created a preliminary "pagecast" through Pageflakes that
contains the most recent posts from a dozen or so student blogs. This
is intended to provide a centralised portal for quickly locating new
content without having to visit each blog individually. If new
content is available you are able to go directly to the blog via a
weblink in the portal - this is typically available by clicking on the
title of the post.

The page is available at: http://www.pageflakes.com/mbogle/24146159

[Apologies for the site being listed as "Mike's Facilitating Online
Communities 2008", I haven't found a way to remove the reference to
me.]

Please note this does not preclude you from using an RSS reader for
the same blogs/sites - the same content is propagated across the web.
So you can use your own tools if you prefer.

It is by no means complete and will/can ultimately include all blogs
if the consensus is this space is a worthwhile venture. We can also
add Flickr images, video, del.icio.us links, or any of a bunch of
additional options.

With that said though, I have found in the past though that the page
load times can be fairly high the more panels exist on the page. So
in the interests of accessibility I thought it best to gain input
before proceeding any further. If people find they are unable to
access the site, or if the load times are unreasonably slow - we might
decide it best to use another option.

I'm also unsure of what the implications are for other accessibility
matters such as screen readers. This is all the more reason for a
quick test.

Please let me know your thoughts and I'll do my best to accommodate
them (inasmuch as the site enables me to do so).

Cheers,

Mike

[Gabriela]

Great, Mike, I've copied your page. I'm not used to pageflakes and I
wonder if it will update when you add more flakes. Yes, it should.
It's the same page after all.
Thanks a lot.
gabriela

[Joao Alves]

Hi Mike,

We were both doing exactly the same thing, namely aggregating the
students' blogs. Only that I did it in Netvibes. http://www.netvibes.com/joaoalves#FOC08
I created a public netvibes just for that matter. As you said, this
does not preclude the students to use their own RSS readers. It's
suppose to provide a centralized place to quickly access all the
blogs. Now we have two places for that .... :-) I am not aware if
Netvibes is faster than Pageflakes to load. Like Mike said, and
according to my own experience, Pageflakes is sometimes slow to load.
Anyway, we are just trying to find out which is the best solution for
all of us.

Cheers,
Joao

[Andrew Chambers]

Make that 3 places Joao, I've started setting up something similar in Protopage. This service is comparable to pageflakes and netvibes. The FOC section is the middle column. For the moment I have simply integrated it with my existing protopage.

My protopage is visible here:
http://www.protopage.com/elearningthoughts

I'd encourage everyone to having a go at copying rss feed links (usually using something called "widgets") into a personal page on these services. It sounds complicated but it isn't. It is very easy to create a personalised page that reflects your own interests based on a huge range of web site content and not just blogs.

BTW, apologies for not making the online chat. I had to commute to work...

Regards
Andrew Chambers
Learning & Teaching
University of New South Wales

[Jennifer Verschoor]

Thank you Joao and Mike for making such wonderful pages. I added both to my delicous account.

I will follow you from Japan!!

Regards

Jennifer

 

2008/7/28, Gabriela <gsel...@gmail.com>:

[Joao Alves]

Hi Andrew,

I tried to access your protopage but it asked me for a password. Did I do anything wrong? Can you please check?

Cheers,
Joao

2008/7/29 Andrew Chambers <A.Cha...@unsw.edu.au>

--
Joao Alves
http://joaocarlosalves.eu

[Leigh Blackall]

Just a quick message for people who are at a loss as to what Mike, Gabriela, Andrew, Jennifer and Joao are up to...

They are basically organising a way to manage content for this course. It sounds technically advanced, and in some ways it is. But they are using highly popular media to do it, so in that way it is every day stuff... go figure :)

For those of you who are feeling a bit over whelmed by this sudden burst of technical creativity, don't be. It is extra and above what you need to be doing now. This is not to say what is being done is not valuable - it will become VERY valuable, once you know what it is they are doing ;)

So, if you want to keep it simple, just focus on the to do list on the wiki.
Set up a blog,
update your intro with your blog address,
and set up an RSS news reader.

For most of us, this is technically challenging enough. You may even consider turning off, or foldering the email from this forum for a bit while you focus on these 3 steps.

For Andrew, Mike, Gabriela, Jennifer and Joao.. keep going by all means (thank you).. I will try to allay the scariness for some in what you are doing...

--
--
Leigh Blackall
+64(0)21736539
skype - leigh_blackall
SL - Leroy Goalpost
http://learnonline.wordpress.com

[Mike Bogle]

Hi Leigh,

Too true, sorry about that.  Perhaps I'll write a blog post with my next big idea instead of distracting everybody here :)

Cheers,

Mike

[Gabriela]

Leigh, I don't know how much I'll learn from the course contents. What
I'm sure of is that I'm learning a lot just from reading you.
g

On Jul 29, 1:50 am, "Leigh Blackall" <leighblack...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a quick message for people who are at a loss as to what Mike, Gabriela,
> Andrew, Jennifer and Joao are up to...
>
> They are basically organising a way to manage content for this course. It
> sounds technically advanced, and in some ways it is. But they are using
> highly popular media to do it, so in that way it is every day stuff... go
> figure :)
>
> For those of you who are feeling a bit over whelmed by this sudden burst of
> technical creativity, don't be. It is extra and above what you need to be
> doing now. This is not to say what is being done is not valuable - it will
> become VERY valuable, once you know what it is they are doing ;)
>
> So, if you want to keep it simple, just focus on the to do list on the

> wiki<http://wikieducator.org/Facilitating_online_communities>.

>
> Set up a blog,
> update your intro with your blog address,
> and set up an RSS news reader.
>
> For most of us, this is technically challenging enough. You may even
> consider turning off, or foldering the email from this forum for a bit while
> you focus on these 3 steps.
>
> For Andrew, Mike, Gabriela, Jennifer and Joao.. keep going by all means
> (thank you).. I will try to allay the scariness for some in what you are
> doing...
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 1:33 PM, Joao Alves <j.alve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Andrew,
>
> > I tried to access your protopage but it asked me for a password. Did I do
> > anything wrong? Can you please check?
>
> > Cheers,
> > Joao
>

> > 2008/7/29 Andrew Chambers <A.Chamb...@unsw.edu.au>

[Beasley]

Thanks, Leigh-

I _am_ feeling a bit intimidated by the level of the conversation. I understand the concept behind what they are doing (I think) but wouldn't have a clue about how to do it.  I would, however, love to _learn_ how, though not right this minute! And I look forward to being able to make use of an "all the blogs in one place" outcome of their efforts.

WmB.

[Mike Bogle]

Hi WmB,

I feel the need to apologise about well.  I hadn't intended for the topic to distract from the initial first week activities and feel like it unfortunately has.  As Leigh has said, this is above and beyond what's been included in the course outline so feel free to ignore it (with my apologies).

That said, in the interests of clarity I've put together a quick and dirty screen cast (how-to video) that shows a quick demo on how you put one of these together.  I'm uploading it to Blip.TV as we speak and will follow up with a blog post covering a bit more information on the background.  If you're interested feel free to look for it on my blog, http://techticker.net - (but give me a couple of hours.

Regardless I won't raise the issue again here as I think I've caused enough trouble already - sorry Leigh!

Cheers,

Mike

[illya...@gmail.com]

Dear Mike, Joao and Andrew
Thank you so much for taking the time to set up the blogmash? It's a
great opportunity to compare tools as well.
Sorry, Andrew, but I couldn't see the one you opened. Do you have to
be a member to see it?

Joao, I had looked at netvibes, but never really saw the point and
only now realize that you can use part of it in the same way as
pageflakes, and you have more than one entry per blog as well. Good to
know.

I'd also like to emphasise what Leigh has said, "it will be become
valuable" especially as we begin to update our blogs and want to
comment on others on the course. And the best thing about it is, you
can use the ones the people above have very generously offered to
share!

Oh, now I guess it's time to do my task and update my blog.

Greetings
Illya

[Joao Alves]

Hi Mike,

I don't feel any need to apologise. What we did was nothing wrong, was it? It even can be helpful for people to easily monitor all the blogs of the course participants. People don't need to worry about how it is technically done. Everyone can just use it, if they find it useful. I will use for myself. It will certainly be helpful to keep track of what the participants are writing about the course and so being a permanent challenge to make comments and reflect on the subjects being discussed.

Cheers,
Joao

2008/7/29 Mike Bogle <michael...@gmail.com>

[Leigh Blackall]

What we did was nothing wrong, was it?

Of course not Joao :) its just that some of the technology you guys are using is well beyond quite a few people with us. You're kind of 8 weeks ahead of us. Your preparation now, will be incredibly valuable come week 13 when we organise a course mini conference. So don't stop - don't even stop talking about.. I just wanted to comfort those who might have been thinking, "OMG, what have I gotten myself into here then!"

All good? Its great to have you with us.. so much to learn.. so much we MUST learn

[Mike Bogle]

Hi All,

Oh good :) Now one last thing on this before I get to work because I'm inundated today.

For the brave and/or otherwise interested I wrote up a background on pagecasting and have embedded a screencast and have included it here:

http://techticker.net/2008/07/29/pageflakes-pagecasts/

Hope it's useful :)

Cheers,

Mike

[mariecasas]

I'm rushing to get home. It's really late... but I wanted to share
this quickly:
http://sxyshandy.vox.com/library/post/subscribe-to-foc08-rss-feeds-in-3-minutes.html

On Jul 29, 9:09 am, Joao Alves <j.alve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> We were both doing exactly the same thing, namely aggregating the

> students' blogs. Only that I did it in Netvibes.http://www.netvibes.com/joaoalves#FOC08

[Wayne Anderson]

I like the idea of pageflakes. Is if possible to limit the feeds to post only connected to the FOC08 course? Tags? The amount of information on the page can be a little daunting and difficult to visually sift through. Just a thought.

Wayne

[NELLIE DEUTSCH]

How many blogs are there? I would like to add them all.

--
Nellie Deutsch
Doctoral Student
Educational Leadership
Curriculum and Instruction
http://www.nelliemuller.com
http://www.integrating-technology.com/pd
http://www.building-relationship.com/education
http://blendedlear.ning.com

[Mike Bogle]

Hi Everyone,

I'm definitely happy to do that if people find it useful.  I'll try and update things later today when time permits.  In the meantime if you see your blog is not on the page please let me know (with the URL) and I'll add you to the list.  I'm trying to keep up with the amendments to the course wiki but some will slip through the cracks :)

Cheers,

Mike

[Leigh Blackall]

Hi Nellie

How many blogs are there? I would like to add them all.

If you can wait until the start of next week, I will update the list of  names on the discussion page to the course wiki with links to the blogs. That way we are giving everyone a chance to get their to do list done for the week. Mike will also be able to check that list against his Pageflakes set up, as will others with their respective News Readers et al.

[NELLIE DEUTSCH]

Thank you, Leigh, Mike, Joao, and everyone else who has been coming up with great ideas on the feeds.

[Joao Alves]

Hi,
I have collected about half of all the participants' blogs here http://www.netvibes.com/joaoalves#FOC08, labeled them with their owners' names and ordered them alphabetically. I would love to gather all the blogs there, so please let me know your blog's URL if it is not yet listed.

Feel free to use the page, if you find it useful.

Cheers,
Joao

2008/7/31 NELLIE DEUTSCH <nellie.mul...@gmail.com>