The Widget Hunt

Okay, so I have been trying to figure out what a widget is for about two weeks. I first heard the term at Turning Point, but so many new things were swirling around in my head that I didn't really latch on to it until later. Then I was visiting the iConnect website and saw that Charlie from TPLC knows a thing or two about widgets. I checked out the resources there, but soon realized that my background knowledge was not strong enough to even really understand what I was seeing. Next I turned to my go-to-guy when it comes to technology - my fifteen year old son. He had no idea. My second go-go-guy, my husband was also clueless about widgets. Since I know I am supposed to be driving my own learning, I continued on in my pursuit. I went to the old standby - Wikipedia. Here is what I found, "a physically inspired applet on the web." I have no idea what that means. So my latest attempt is to just give it a try. My Shelfari account asks if I want a widget for my blog. Hmmm, I think, how bad can it be? If something goes wrong, I can just delete it, right? Not really knowing what I was doing, I worked through the steps in Shelfari to create the widget. Voila! My blog has a link to my Shelfari page. So what is a widget exactly? A link from one website to another? I am still not sure, but I am getting closer.