Skip to main content

Web 2.0 Adventures in "Aggregate Pages"

I have to admit - I was very skeptical of this assignment. I had no idea what an aggregate page was or how to put one together! In reading the instructions, it sounded like this was a "Pinterest" of sorts...a place to keep all your ideas about stuff in one place....almost a replacement for the toolbar at the top of your screen. After I played around with both NetVibes and Protopage, I realized that this is actually a pretty cool idea. If I wanted, I could make my "aggregate page" my HOME page - and instead of having to click on 14 tabs or search for 14 sites, I can have them all ready to go and right in front of my face. That's kind of nifty, if you ask me.

Of the two sites we were to experiment with, I initially thought that NetVibes looked more simplistic, less flashy, and easier to read. I think this still may be the case, but when I started playing around with NetVibes, I was turned around so backwards that I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do to get anything anywhere that I wanted it. And I couldn't find any instructions! PLUS, they insisted on giving me a 14 day free trial of an upgrade....if this was going to be something I end up using, I don't want to set up parts of a page that I'm going to have to PAY for in 2 weeks! So, I conceded to look at Protopage a little more closely. (To be honest, when I first looked at the sample page and saw what I perceived as cluttered, messy, and difficult to read, I clicked right out again, dismissing it as an option.)

The clouds parted, birdies sang...

Well, maybe not really - but right there at the top of the set-up page for Protopage are easy to follow tips for setting up your account. And every time you add something, it seems like there's another helpful tidbit telling you what to do - just in case. Even better, all that distracted clutter that I saw on the example page? That mess was designed by THAT user! Mine is much less psychedelic and more sedate  - to match MY personality. I had fun deciding what to keep and what to get rid of from their "automatic fillers". I enjoyed looking for things that I know I go searching for on a daily basis to try to figure out how to include them on this page. If my dear sweet hubby approves, this may just replace our homepage! (If not, it will definitely be the ONE tab I click on to find ALL the things in one place!) One of the best parts of this "adventure" was when my husband (an admitted "tech" guy and the one everyone at church goes to to fix things) walked past and asked me what I was working on! He didn't even know about this possibility and thought it was cool. In fact, we even have a "date" this afternoon so I can show him how to set one up! (Who's the tech guru now?)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Web 2.0 Vanity Revisited

Newsflash: I am not interesting! Not in the sense that I'd be a popular result on Google anyway! I retraced my exact steps for the initial vanity post and - even though we've been assigned things that may have produced some results for others - mine remained EXACTLY the same. Well - one search turned up an image a bit earlier....but besides that? Nada. Zilch. Nothing different from before. I actually think that having a minimal presence like this is a GOOD thing in education. I feel like it means that I've nailed down my parameters in a way that any person doing a random search for something inflammatory is NOT going to find it. My profiles on the different platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) are all private enough that you have to go through ME to get to them. (Unless you're skilled in the art of hacking - and then, more power to you. I'm STILL very uninteresting - posting only things that I would be ok with my parents reading/seeing) I also feel that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Web 2.0 Adventures in YouTube

"Mom! Can I watch YouTube?" This is a frequent question that I hear from my daughter. I'm always torn. I trust my daughter. I trust that she will not visit or search for any unsavory videos or subjects. But do I trust YouTube? Not really. YouTube for me has always been this big unknown. I usually only visit the popular site if a link from elsewhere takes me there, OR if I have a specific video I'm searching for. Otherwise, all that "chance" of seeing or hearing or experiencing something I don't want to is too big for my anti-risk taking ways. All that being said, I embraced this adventure because I realize that I live in the 21st century. Like our professor says - THIS is what kids use the way we use Google. Do I like it? No. That doesn't change the fact that it IS a fact! Also, my husband had just set up an account channel for me to record videos for my library students - so I was looking forward to playing around with that a bit more. What did I...
1 comment
Read more

WHAT IS A BLOG? WHICH ONE SHOULD I USE? WHY?

So I think I've landed on Blogger. I typed in "free blog sites" in Google as suggested and was given approximately a gazillion responses. The first "hit" was an article titled something like "The top 9 free blog sites". Alrighty. So - let's check that out. This author gave the choices of WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Medium, Ghost, Blogger, Tumblr, Joomla, and Jimdo (in that order). She wrote about the pros & cons of each platform and kept pushing WordPress as the top pick - with there being two options within that platform - .org & .com. I viewed & played with several of these and decided that given all the options and what I ultimately want to gain out of this blog assignment (a blog that can possibly morph from an assignment to something that I can continue and use successfully) that BLOGGER was the winner. It seemed simple enough and gave me just enough freedom to be challenging but not so much that I was going to get overwhelmed and dis...
Post a Comment
Read more