Personal Blogs

In H800 we had to make an overview of my PLE which you can find here
These are the technologies I'm currently using.

For my study I use iGoole as my main account for Blogging and reading others' blogs. I find iGoogle a very useful tool because as soon as you open your account you get an overview of all your used applications. In my case this is: Google Calender (a shared calender with my class parents and students), Google Mail, Google Groups (virtual environment for my different classes), Blogs and Google Reader (aggregator for reading blogs).

For my e-portfolio (storing evidence) I use Google docs and Office Live. Lately I use Office live more often than Google Docs because I use quite a lot of Excel files which are not really compatible (IMHO) with google docs. I store my written work for the OU course and I have stored all my work files (worksheets, planning, time tables etc). I can share these documents with others as well but I have to invite them first and on the receiving end one has to create an account (same as with Google Docs).

For Blogging I use various accounts (all stored in Google Reader). For the OU I use my OU blog which is quite simple, but it does the job. I mainly write my personal reflections about what's keeping me busy during the course. This can be either personal notes and/or reflections regarding articles we have to read. When I write my TMA's I look back on what I've written, what kind of responses I've had. I also store interesting comments or blog posts in my iGoogle account (shared documents) which I also use for my TMA's.
On a personal level I also have a cycling log in which I write reviews about various cycle routes throughout Europe. I also have a class blog, where my primary students write about their schooltrips (protected area).

Favourite links, websites, articles and other stuff I find intersting, are saved in my Delicious account. I tag all my files to create an overview of my pile of links. I find this most useful especially when you are part of a network and see what others are saving. Sometimes I start searching for documents in Delicious first. Another interesting fact is the way people are tagging. For me this is quite often a learning experience, to see how other people are using specific keywords.

I have stored all my documents on the net (backup on a mobile hdd) except for my bankdetails and private details. I have no documents left on my laptop or computer anymore.

Currently I'm trying to experiment with "My Stuff" as well. Looks promising. I have to figure out all the different possibilities though. I quite like the "save" buton which directly saves interesting articles, video and comments into "My Stuff". I find this very usefull. I used to copy and paste interesting material into a Word document and then save it in Google Docs or Office Live. This is a fairly quicker way!

I'm wondering if anyone else uses other applications as well? Eportfolios, blogging, storing and sharing...I find this most interesting and above all very useful in my professional, student and private life.

Cheers, Eugene