Go to www.pageflakes.com  Sign up for an account if you do not already have an account. If you have a personal email address, you can use that, or you can use your school address.

In the upper left hand corner, under the large Pageflakes logo, click on the “Click and type page name” tab. Type in the name of the page you are constructing. For example, if this is for a curriculum page, call it “Rocks and Minerals” or “American Civil War.” If you are making this page for a home page, name it “Smith Home Page.”

Look carefully at the flakes already on the page. If you want to keep the flake, but it is not exactly as you want it, click the “Edit” tab at the top left hand corner of the flake. For example, if you want to have weather on your page, but you want to change the location, click “edit” and change the location. All flakes have the edit button.

If you do not want a flake on the page, in the upper left corner is an “x” to click to delete. You will asked if you are sure and told that there is no undo. If you delete the flake, you can add it back by going through the adding flake process. Any edits will be gone, but you can add the flake back if you choose.

When you have checked the flakes already on the page, you can click the large button at the top left of the page, the menu button, to see other flakes. The first screen you see will be the most popular flakes. You can look through those, or you can go directly to “browse all flakes.” You can add as you are browsing and then go back to look at the flakes, or can add, go back to look and edit, and then browse again.

To move flakes around, move your cursor into the light gray bar on top of the flake until you get a four-prong arrow. Holding the mouse button down, move the flake until you have it where you want it, then click. It should stay where you have placed it. If you are moving the flake very far on the page, you may have to move it in several stages.

Browsing other people’s pagecasts can help you decide what you want on your own. With the Browse flakes open, go to the column on the left and click on pagecasts. Then, click “Browse all pagecasts.” In the search box on that page, type education, or type your area of interest. You will be given a list of other pagecasts to browse.

If you want the pageflakes to be used just for you when you sign in with your email, you are finished. If you want to be able to access this page through other email addresses, or want others to be able to pull up your page, you will need to click on the menu button, then move over to the left hand side of the page and click “Make pagecast.” On this, you can decide to only let certain people open your pagecast. For instance, if you only want the computer lab person to pull up your page, you would add her email address. If you don’t mind who sees this page, you can make it public, and anyone who knows your address can get to it. If you plan for students to use this at home, you will need to make it public. Remember that your pagecast can be adjusted easily any time. You may want to start with a very basic page, and as you learn more about what you can do with pageflakes, add something new.