conference call + pageflakes

The conference call we held in class yesterday was something I've never been a part of before. It was a little weird to feel like I was a part
of the business world, on a conference call with the president of a
major corporation. That aside, it was a really interesting experience.
The president, "the baker," seemed very interested in what we had to
say, but also made it clear that his main focus was economically
driven...simply put, to make money. Since his business is still looking
to expand and gather more customers, this is completely understandable.
However, as we discussed afterward in class, he is looking to target
individuals as consumers when he should be marketing toward
universities, corporations, and places that will pay to give others
free access. After all, especially with college students, we are FAR
more reluctant to become users of a resource if we need to pay for it.
There are so many resources available that are free. "Babycakes" seemed
like a company that would target places that would need such a
comprehensive resource to all those programs. I was actually surprised
that they were targeting education at all, but in the context of this
class it makes sense. Individuals, even teachers, are only going to use
a few relevant programs. Especially since my subject is French, I don't
think I'll even have much use for programs such as Excel in my
classroom, even though they are so beneficial to other classes.
Teachers will only use what is specifically pertinent to their subject
and their lesson plans. If babycakes was marketed toward a school
however, and the school could have that resource available for all its
teachers, it would be much more useful. An entire school full of
teachers will need a much wider range of programs to learn about, as
opposed to an individual teacher who may only need 2 or 3. To learn how
to use 2 or 3 programs, a monthly subscription to a program that taught
you so many would just not be worth it.

This past class was the first time I was really awe-struck at one of the sites we were shown. The pageflakes site was the one I thought was best. Since I have just "converted" to firefox, I love the fact that I can set 4 different tabs as my homepage. Building on a similar concept, this site has it all on one page. I love that at a single glance you can get all the information you'd like, customized to what you want to know each time you open the browser. This is something I would use personally not only as a teacher, but for my internet use in general. Great idea.