"How to" Guideline series is coordinated by Helen Mongan-Rallis of the Education Department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions to improve these guidelines please e-mail hrallis@d.umn.edu.

How to Create and Use a Furl Account

By Helen Mongan-Rallis. Last updated: November 10, 2007

Initiating Furl account:

1. Go to http://www.furl.net/ --> click on the orange "Create your new account" button.
2. Fill in the form on the initiation page following the prompts on the page. It is very important that you give a real e-mail address as once you have filled out this form, you have to wait to receive an e-mail from Furl that validates your account. This can take a few hours.
3. Check your email for the account validation message. When this arrives, as part of the email you will see a the link to activate your account. Click on this link within your email to take you to the Furl account. Important: when you use Furl, you should do this using an up-to-date browser such Firefox*. If your email link directs you to an older browser, then manually copy the link open Firefox, and paste the link into it.
4. This takes you to the furl web page and congratulates you.

Add the the Furl tool bar or button to your browser:

1. Click on the "my tools" tab near the top of your Furl page.
2. Select the option that you wish to use from the choices provided. I recommend adding the Furl toolbar because of the extra functionality that it provides. If you choose that option, under the section on Furl toolbar, follow the link that says, "Click here to learn more and install." Then once there, follow the directions that are provided.

Furling web pages:

1. When you find a web site that you want to be able to refer to at a later date, instead of book marking it, furl it! To do this, once you are on a web page that you want to furl, if you have installed the Furl toolbar, click on it an from the drop down menu, choose "Furl it."
   
2. This opens a small box that guides you through saving the page. You do this by filling in responses in a series of boxes. Some will already be filled in for you and others you need to complete.
   1. It's a good idea to create topics (categories) so that as you furl pages, you place them into relevant categories to make it easier for you to find them later. Also type in keywords so that you can search your furl account for pages to which you have assigned these key words. For example: if the page is on using wikis in education, you might type in the keywords wiki, online communication tool, teaching with technology.
   2. Comments box: use this to type in a description of what is on the page, or, if you prefer, copy and paste a paragraph from the page (some pages begin with a brief overview of their purpose, and this is ideal for pasting into your Furl comment box).
3. Click the save button

To review the archive of the pages you have furled:

1. You can do this from any computer, using any browser. To access your account, go to furl.net
2. Click on the tab for "My archive" --> login to your account using your furl login and password. This will show a list of all the web pages that you have furled.
3. You can then search your archive for a particular page using the search boxes at the top of your archive list.

Searching for web pages that other furl users have furled

1. This is where furling can get even more exciting, because you can become part of a global community of learners who are interested in the same topic as you. Instead of searching for your topic just in your archive, from the drop down menu you can select to search all sources, in my archive, furl, or the web. Try it and see the what you find under each!

*[Need to download Firefox? Go to Firefox download]

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