Screen Real Estate

On Saturday I had a flat forehead moment, you know, one of those moments when you want to say "DOH!" and smack yourself on the forehead head because you just had a blinding flash of the obvious.

On Saturday I had a flat We were working with iGoogle and I had just given the class a tour of my page. You see it here, but without the additional half dozen gadgets you don't see at the bottom of the screen.

I was circulating the as they built their own pages. Michael Kollmer, the Director of Technology for Mamaroneck Public Schools, already an iGoogle user. He showed me how he had it organized. He explained it was all about screen real estate. He had all of his gadgets minimized and was able to see everything on his page in a single screen. That was the flat forehead moment.

It was such a simple thing to do, but I had never thought about it. Now my page looks like this. I use my bookmarks and calendar many times a day, but the other gadgets see far less action. The two I use remain one and the rest remain closed until I need them.

One of the things I love most about teaching is learning from the students.