Widgets

A web widget is a small piece of code that can be placed on a website or blog, such as embedding a video from YouTube.

The four most common places to use web widgets are:

·         Websites. Whether it is a personal website or a business website, widgets can enhance productivity or just add a little fun to your site. Common examples of a widget on a website are ad blocks such as Google Ads.

·         Blogs. Widgets can give your blog a personalized feel, or provide advanced utility for your readers. A common example of a widget on a blog are those "Digg this" icons that will automatically submit blog posts to Digg.

·         Personalized Start Pages. Widgets can also add productivity and/or fun to your start page. A common example of a widget on a start page is RSS readers used to deliver the headlines from your favorite blog or news source such as Yahoo! News or CNN.

·         Social Networking Profiles. You can use widgets on a Social Network to tell more about yourself, such as listing out your favorite books, or have compile your favorite songs into a play list to play for visitors to your profile.

One problem many people have is actually finding widgets to put on their webpage or blog. Most personalized start pages come with a small gallery of widgets that can be used on the start page, but if you are looking for a widget for your blog, it can sometimes be difficult to locate them.

This is where widget galleries come into play. Widget galleries allow people who create widgets to post their widget to the gallery so people like you and me can easily find them. These galleries allow you to search by category to find the widget you are interested in for your blog or social networking profile, and often will even help you get it installed properly.

 How can Widgets be useful to learning?

The use of widgets in the world of learning opens up new opportunities for the development of reusable content, rich applications and useful information services.

First, widget makes the development of learning applications cheaper, a real case of write once, play « everywhere ». Well, not yet, but soon. It is relatively easy to convert a widget for use on different systems (WordPress, Moodle, Pageflakes, etc.).

Secondly, widgets may help leverage or supplement existing API (application programming interface) on institutional systems. Why not a widget offering to search all the learning resources repositories, inquiring real time in the library system for books due, displaying schedules, course offers, job opportunities in a specific fields etc.

Finally, widgets make possible the creation of highly flexible PLEs (Personal Learning Environment) or e-Portfolios, for the learner as for the learning designer.