James points towards Robert’s post about the WordPress Aggregator Blog. If I understand this correctly, it is a WordPress hack that allows a blog to be created by aggregating several blogs. Fantastic – instant online community, just add water! I suppose there is an ethical/intellectual property issue here – what permission would a blog author need to give to participate in an aggregated blog? Does publishing a blog with an RSS feed imply that the posts are for public use? What about my content being aggregated into a blog with someone whose views I found offensive? Technology always seems to be one step ahead of culture’s ability to deal with it.
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Hey Rob,
Great points and questions.
I actually wrote to all of the contributors/authors that I placed in this blog and asked permission to use their feeds.
My thoughts about feeds are (a) they are public, (b) sure, they are probably intended to be read via a reader (not necessarily a blog), (c) if the aggregated posts are cited/identified and comments are required to be made in the author’s blog (not the aggregate blog) then the integrity of their ownership is retained.
But, I’m not locked into those views. Those are just my thoughts right now. Still, I would write to someone before using their blog. I would follow TOS for news feeds from Yahoo!, for instance, too.
Due credit: the blog uses WordPress, MagpieRSS and Kellan Elliott-McCrea’s script. All opensource and free (except for the sweat equity of putting it up). I did very little. Just modified it to suit my goal. Funny thing was, a student (Austin) caught the error that “I” was making and that’s what got the blog going.
Don’t ya’ just love students.
Now, I’m wondering what value there is in this for teachers? For instance, in your areas – would a blog targeting feeds on topics like “Accounting, Biology, Computer Science, Computer Networking, Information Processing, (or) Science and Theory of Knowledge” offer any value to your students? Would you/could you build this into the class lessons/activities?
I was just thinking this could be a good ‘free’ source of supplemental reading or planned class activities from elementary school to college. It even has business applications, I imagine.
Glad you found the blog. Thanks for the mention. All the best.
Robert
Don’t you just love that open source software! In addition to the utility of the little hack you put together, its a nice demonstration of the innovation that can occur with open source.
My mind is racing with some of the possible educational uses of this! I’m especially interested in blogs as tools for creating online communities; this seems like a very useful tool for making an online water cooler for a community of bloggers.
Hey Rob,
I think I’ve finally got it going if you want to download it and give it a whirl.
I’ve tested it a couple of times and it ‘should’ work for either a full install – or just incorporating it into an existing blog.
http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/?p=892
Give it a try if you get a chance. Feedback / corrections / ideas — all appreciated.
Take care.
Robert