Why maintain hyperlinks in your favorites database when you can use open source software known as “Aggregation Tools”? Aggregation is simple way you can research the web by tagging and sharing your webpage's. You choose a aggregation application service like diigo or delicious, and then bookmark your researched websites that interest you by labeling it and using keywords called tags.
Aggregation is the act of collecting content from multiple resources of information and then pulling information together into one information pool. In education aggregating information can help in topic selection as the aggregation tools seeks out topics lessening the one line search results. Social network aggregation is the process of collecting content from multiple social network services. The task is often performed by a social network aggregator, which pulls together information into a single location, or helps a user consolidate multiple social networking profiles into one profile.
Various aggregation services provide tools or widgets to allow users to consolidate messages, track friends, combine bookmarks, search across multiple social networking sites, read RSS feeds for multiple social networks, see when their name is mentioned on various sites, access their profiles from a single interface, provide "lifestreams". Social network aggregation services attempt to organize or simplify a user's social networking experience, although the idea has been satirized by the concept of a "social network aggregator aggregator."
WEBLIST
- WebList Weblist is a tool for creating visual lists of websites, displayed as thumbnails. Use Weblist to create lists of websites for students, without the distraction of the free web! Create your list of URLs centered on a specific theme to combine it into one URL. Save it as a smart bookmark or as a customizable home page, share it with friends via email or through the top social media networks, and post it on your blog. Weblist (http://weblist.me) Weblist lets you pull together and organize content on the web. Create a list of urls centered on a theme and combine them into one easy to navigate url weblist. The list can be saved as a bookmark or a homepage. Weblist is particularly useful for the primary elementary classroom because of its visual aspect. Each website is saved as a snapshot of that website with the website name and a description below. The visual organization is perfect for younger students who may not be able to navigate links designated by text alone.
DELICIOUS
- Delicious is a bookmarking service that is specifically designed for saving and sharing bookmarks. It is useful tool for educators because the software application allows for the storage and categorization of hundreds of links to interesting web sites. Delicious makes it easy to store links all in one place. When used in the classroom students can publish links for other class members to use especially when developing classroom collaborative projects. The power of Delicious as an educational tool is in making bookmarks accessible to other students in a learning community, and makes everyone else’s bookmarks available to those who are invited to join the learning community.
- By ‘tagging’ your bookmark on Delicious with brief one or two word descriptors, enables a search to be conducted across the entire site for bookmarks others have labeled with similar interest. Therefore if you have a particular interest in say ‘Literacy 2.0’, and you do a search across Delicious, you will aggregate all of the sites that have been tagged ‘Literacy 2.0’ by popularity. The process of searching by tags leads to the discovery of content rich environments where in-depth learning can occur. Delicious can be used then as a process of post holing knowledge into deeper meaning of content.
- Bookmark any site on the Internet, and get to it from anywhere
- Instead of having different bookmarks on every computer, Delicious makes it easy to have a single set of bookmarks kept in sync between all of your computers. Even if you're not on a computer you own, you can still get to your bookmarks on the Delicious website.
- Share your bookmarks, and get bookmarks in return
- If your friends use Delicious, you can send them interesting bookmarks that they can check out the next time they log in. Of course, they can do the same for you. As you explore the site and find interesting users, you can use our Subscriptions and Network features to keep track of the Delicious tags and users you find most interesting.
- Discover the most useful and interesting bookmarks on the web
- See what's hot with Delicious users by checking out our popular tags. By looking at popular bookmarks for a tag, you'll be able to discover the most interesting bookmarks on the topics you're most interested in. Browse bookmarks on just about anything from the best programming tips to the most popular travel sites, all in an easy to read format.
R.S.S. REAL SIMPLE SYNDICATION
- Real Simple Syndication: So just what is RSS and how can it be used in education? Depending on who you talk to, RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication. Either way, RSS is a real important technology that information specialists and educators would be well advised to harness sooner rather than later. In simple terms, Weblogs (and an ever-growing number of other sites) generate a behind-the-scenes code in a language similar to HTML called XML. This code, usually referred to as a "feed" (as in "news feed,") makes it possible for readers to "subscribe" to the content that is created on a particular Weblog so they no longer have to visit the blog itself to get it. As is true with traditional syndication, the content comes to you instead of you going to get it, hence “Real Simple Syndication.”