Google Custom Search updated

A while ago Google launched Custom Search, a way to search within in a defined set of websites to find specific results. Using Stephen Downes‘ blogroll, I created one for the edublogosphere. It’s still active, although it hasn’t be updated for a while. That was the problem: you had to keep going back, logging in, and updating your list. Yes, you could add collaborators but it was a bit… well, messy.

Not any more! Google announced yesterday that Custom Search will now work on-the-fly from a piece of code inserted in a web page of your choice. So, I’m thinking a wiki with a list of all the blogs in the edublogosphere continually updated. Perhaps this is the cause to which Chris Craft can donate his excellent (but currently inactive) edublogosphere.com domain name? 🙂

I can imagine this could be very useful for courses that involve a substantial amount of independent work by students: sixth-form colleges, universities and the like. It’s probably less immediately useful to schools, although I should imagine it could be fantastic for groups of like-minded teachers…