Last month I wrote about BridgeURL, a service that lets you bundle links together into one URL. Controls appear on either side of your browser window that allow you to cycle through the links. Here’s an example of a BridgeURL link. For those of you who are fans of bit.ly, the URL shortener service, they’ve recently added the ability to bundle URLs together.
Log in to your bit.ly account. Check the boxes next to the links you’d like to bundle together, and click ‘Bundle.’
Clicking ‘Bundle’ generates this page where you can add links to your newly created bundle. In this screenshot, you only see the first link. The other two are below it. You can revisit this bundle at any time to add links.
I’m going to change the title and give a description of the bundle.
This is what it now looks like.
When I click the ‘Share’ button, I get the screen below. If I click ‘Copy,’ the URL for my bundle is copied to my clipboard, and I can paste it anywhere I’d like. If I click customize, I can name the link anything that isn’t already taken. For instance, I customized this bundle to this: http://bit.ly/Correlations. If you’re giving links to students in paper form, customizing is the way to go. It’s easier for students to type in that URL than to type in random letters.
Once your bundle’s created, you can add links, remove links, and rearrange links. Go back into your bit.ly account, and click on the bundle. Or just follow the link that you created.
To add links, copy and paste your link into the box and click ‘Add to bundle.’ To edit your title or description, click on the title to change the title; click on the description to change the description. To delete or rearrange links, click the box directly above the ‘Add to bundle’ button. That will collapse all of your links so you’ll only see the titles. Click the garbage can to delete a link. To rearrange the links, mouse over a link, grab it with the hand that appears, and drag it to where you want it to go. That’s it. It’s automatically saved, and your previous customized URL will still work.
If you send your students out to the web to visit a number of sites, bundling makes it easier on you and your students. By editing your bundle, you can easily change an assignment without changing the URL you give to your students.
And for those of you have become QR code aficionados, point your smartphone here to go to this bit.ly bundle.
