No problems adding the widget – it was simply a copy and paste following the instructions provided.

Box.net provide 1Gb of free online traffic and 10Gb of traffic a month.  It’s a neat way to add several document to a blog without using up space.

Currently in the widget is a document reviewing free online storage – something I did for work.  I was suprised how much space I could get for free – about 35Gb for 30 minutes searching!

An online learning space for most of these products appears to comprise of some online storage, a facility to add bookmarks and notes and a calendar.

Pageflages appears to offer a lot of the same functionality.

Experimenting with Pageflakes, I was able to add ‘flakes’ that contained my emails, add a to-do list and add notes.  Here’s a link to my example.

The all important online storage is available by adding a ‘flake’ that links to your Box.net free online storage account of 1Gb.  Files are limited to 10Mb max and 10Gb of traffic is permitted a month.  This compares favourably with many online storage spaces provided to students through learning platforms.

A calendar and a timetable can be added to the page, along with a message board.  RSS feeds and images from a Flickr account can be added.

There are an increasing number of ‘flakes’ available that allow you to further personalise your Pageflake.

Pages can be ’shared’ allowing other to view these.  Clearly emails and other ‘flakes’ would not want to be on shared pages, but calendar, notes and to-do lists might be helpful.  You can select who has access to your page and even provide them with access to edit your page.

Overall, this free tool offers a lot of the functionality of an online learning space.  The learner manages this space as opposed to a school on behalf of its students.  This is a significantly different way of working to schools managing learning spaces.

The key feature missing is a link to a virtual learning environment and the ability this provide for teachers to support the students learning by providing resources, tasks, tests and feedback.  A link to Wikipedia will have to do instead.

For the student who is looking for a more customizable space than the one provided through the school’s learning platform, Pageflakes make have an appeal.  The student can add a link to their school’s online space to access their work assigned from a VLE.