Tom's Two Cents

A few months ago I helped a friend win the Pepsi Refresh Challenge, which gave $25,000 to one of my favorite music associations, the Redlands Bowl. The following month he did it again, this time at the $50K level. The basic idea is that there is strength in numbers. This time Marion and I have teamed up with other groups to form an alliance for TwHistory (our project to create virtual reenactments using Twitter).

We are going for a $25K grant for TwHistory and we have a month to collect all the daily votes we can. It’s simple: if we are in the top 10 with the most votes at the $25K level at the end of the month, we get the funding. Here are our deliverables:

• 10 lesson plans built around historical documents
• 1 example of a virtual historical reenactment (Sinking of the Titanic)
• 1 ‘how to’ video posted on our site for educators to learn the TwHistory process

Vote for TwHistory here.  Another way to vote for us is by texting 102066 to Pepsi (73774). There is even a Facebook app for voting.

You are allowed to vote for up to 10 projects each day, so please vote for our partners as well. Here is a combined list of our partners, just to make voting easy. You can also support them by texting the following numbers to Pepsi (73774):

Complete a Sculpture Garden & create Public Art with the REV Wildcats!
Text 102048

“Lay a Foundation of FITness in our Community”
Text 101377

Develop programming and curriculum for a free multi-arts school in MN.
Text 102340

Without Vision a People Perish; provide quality fine art performances
Text 102320

HEAL THE NATION: Featuring inspiring student role models & heroes
Text 100511

Creatively fund community needs through the arts.
Text 100505

Save thousands of animal lives with new low cost spay/neuter clinic.
Text 100506

Open POP! Performing Arts Outreach Camp Program for Underserved Kids
Text 100843

Support underprivileged children and their dream to play sports.
Text 100847

Build a new playground for some very deserving kids in Las Vegas.
Text 100216

Thanks for voting! For daily reminders and links, add me to your Twitter or Facebook. Forward, march!!

Related Posts:

• TwHistory at ICLS 2010
• TTIX 2010 TwHistory Presentation: Tweeting From the Titanic
• Let’s Ban Paper Too: What Public Schools 1.0 Can Learn From Web 2.0
• New Media and Learning Symposium: WoW!
• Teaching Tolerance through TwHistory?

Mobile Learning, Openness, Web 2.0, twitter twhistory

There seem to be lots of folks running around with PhDs who are unemployed or under-employed (like the guy I met who is an airport shuttle driver in Denver). With so much education, what is keeping these people from their dream jobs? They obviously invested plenty of time on their education, along with thousands of dollars. While there are probably many reasons newly graduated PhDs don’t get hired, I wonder if some of us forget the importance of the networks and relationships that are needed to land a job in academia after graduation. Well-chosen academic conferences are one place to build a professional network.

I spent a few hundred dollars attending ICLS last week, and it was one of the best investments in my education this year. Several people were surprised that I would spend my own money to attend an academic conference. Don’t get me wrong, I would much rather be reimbursed for this kind of thing; but that is not always possible. To me, spending money on a good academic conference is no different than spending money on tuition. I am earning skills, a credential, and a network, and it will take all three to land a good job at a good university (in a place with lots of sunshine, beaches, and low humidity).

Why did I go to ICLS? I went to meet the right people, now that I know my dissertation topic (using TwHistory in the classroom). I presented a poster on TwHistory, which basically served as bait. But I didn’t wait for the professors to just show up. Instead, I attended their sessions, introduced myself, and invited them to come to my poster. Several professors I met last month at AERA came up to my poster and asked me difficult questions about my methodology. Two of the better known history learning scientists spent the next 20+ minutes, beers in hand, coaching me through a more compelling logic model for my dissertation. For the next 2 hours I was asked a lot of questions and given a lot of great feedback on doing historical reenactments with Twitter. I don’t know how to put a dollar value on all of this, but I can only say that it was extremely useful, and well-worth a few hundred dollars. (Plus I got to attend a Cub’s game. What could be better? Well, I guess they could have won.)

Related Posts:

• TwHistory at ICLS 2010

Conferences, PhD icls2010

I’ll be sharing a poster on TwHistory at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences 2010 this week with Brett Shelton, Victor Lee, and Marion Jensen (see the sneak peek below). If you’re curious about how we create historical reenactments on Twitter, visit TwHistory.org for more information, FAQs and a directory of our current reenactments. I’m very happy to see an ICLS Twitter channel all set up and ready to go. I’m looking forward to using it!

Related Posts:

• TTIX 2010 TwHistory Presentation: Tweeting From the Titanic
• An opportunity for TwHistory
• Let’s Ban Paper Too: What Public Schools 1.0 Can Learn From Web 2.0
• New Media and Learning Symposium: WoW!
• Teaching Tolerance through TwHistory?

Conferences, twitter Brett Shelton, icls2010, marion jensen, poster, twhistory, Victory Lee

Yesterday I rode 75 miles in the MS150 (aka Harmon’s Best Dam Bike Ride) with my friend Trent Cameron. It was a great event that raised nearly $1 million for the fight against MS. It was a really great event — well-organized with tons of support.

On the ride decided to try out Instamapper, a free, real-time tracking app available for iPhone, Android, and several other smart phones. Once you install the app and register on the Instamapper site, you can share a link with people that allows them to see exactly where you are on a map while the app is running on your smart phone. It’s a great idea, but the user interface needs a little work for it to really take off. For starters, connecting a new device is a bit of a pain. I don’t see why you can just register directly from the app and have it take care of the rest for you, but instead it requires you to obtain and type in a device key. The map sharing link is also a bit hard to find, while a link to the raw data is available as soon as you login. I get the feeling the site was set up by a programmer, not a designer. Finally, there doesn’t seem to be a way to identify the start and end of a route. I had to change batteries halfway through my ride, and the two segments show up as separate routes. Still, I think being able to share out your location and path with a public link is a great idea and has lots of applications.

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

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Android, Cycling, Reviews bikemsUtah, cycling, GPS, Instamapper

Earlier this month Marion Jensen, Rob Barton, and I did a TwHistory presentation at TTIX 2010 (Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange). It was a great conference, and Michael Johnson is the new Grand Poobah. Congratulations!

Our “Tweeting from the Titanic” workshop began with a presentation to familiarize participants with how we use Twitter to share historical reenactments (we call it TwHistory). During the second half of the workshop participants researched several characters from the Titanic crew and quickly created nearly 100 tweets that were scheduled and shared that night at dinner. Due to the lack of time, we allowed participants to take some liberties during the workshop, creating a sort of virtual role play based on first-hand accounts. You can see the Titanic resources we prepared, as well as the Titanic Tweets Google Spreadsheet we used to coordinate it all. While we weren’t able to broadcast the tweets on the exact day of the tragic sinking (April 15), we tried our best to tweet at the appropriate times, adjusted for our timezone (GMT-6). I would love to extend this and prepare a more robust, historically sound version for the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, which will take place on April 15, 2012.

I should also mention that there is another TwHistory workshop coming up in October at the 2010 AECT convention in Anaheim, CA. We are preparing a reenactment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and participants will have the opportunity to create some of the tweets for Black Sunday (October 27th), which happens to be the day of our session. I’m looking forward to that one! Here are the details of our AECT workshop:

11-R6:

TwHistory Workshop: Tweeting the Cuban Missile Crisis

Workshop participants will be introduced to TwHistory, a framework for creating and sharing historical reenactments with Twitter. They will be guided through the process of researching and creating tweets for the historical figures they will represent in an online Cuban Missile Crisis reenactment. The combined tweets will form a reenactment that will be shared via Twitter and TwHistory.org during the 2010 AECT conference and coinciding with the 48th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Related Posts:

• TwHistory at ICLS 2010
• An opportunity for TwHistory
• Let’s Ban Paper Too: What Public Schools 1.0 Can Learn From Web 2.0
• New Media and Learning Symposium: WoW!
• Teaching Tolerance through TwHistory?

Conferences, twitter marion jensen, rob barton, titanic, ttix, twhistory

Last month in Vietnam Hal Plotkin gave a truly outstanding keynote at the OCWC Global Meeting, describing Open Educational Resources as the way to make higher education affordable and accessible to all who seek it. Hal is currently a senior adviser to the Under Secretary of the US Department of Education Martha Kanter. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Hal after the conference as we toured Ha Long Bay, and I must say that he is the type of person who restores my confidence in my government. Even if you only have time to watch part of his keynote I highly recommend it. Much of it draws from his own life story, with very humble beginnings (Hal was forced to drop out of school to support his mother and siblings). Enjoy!

May 6 Keynote: Hal Plotkin from OpenCourseWare Consortium on Vimeo.

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Conferences Hal Plotkin, keynote, OCWC, Vietnam

In honor of my 140th blog post on http://tomcaswell.com, I am posting a few tweets I just submitted to the College Open Textbook Community in response to their call. (The call is still open if you are interested in submitting tweets for their book.) This is my first time blogging tweets so bear with me…

My Tweets on Open Education

1) What is Open?
Open is the natural habitat for educational materials. Imparting knowledge implies sharing it. The ideal environment for education is open.

2) Why Author an Open Textbook?
To author an Open Textbook is to give something back, to replenish the pool of education from which we ourselves have drunk so deeply.

An Open Textbook is the new currency in a reputation-based economy. It survives w/o the protective vacuum of copyright. In fact, it thrives.

3) Why Adopt an Open Textbook?
Open Textbooks should be adopted for their quality, affordability, adaptability, portability, scalability, and accessibility.

4) How to Adopt an Open Textbook?
Tell your administrators why you want to adopt an Open Textbook, join with others in the OER movement, build support, & overcome barriers.

5) Why Should Your College/University Care?
Because Open Textbooks are part of a growing movement towards education affordability that makes sense & is supported by the US Dept. of Ed.

6) How Does the Student Benefit?
Students benefit now from educational affordability & later by having high quality educational resources available to review at any time.

7) Where are we Headed?
We are headed towards educational affordability and openness, where quality content can be created, rated, shared, & adapted by all.

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Openness, twitter open education, Open textbooks, tweets

I’ve been doing this every 6 months for the last couple years, so it’s time for another “top Android app” list. As of June 2010, here are the apps I recommend for those with Android devices (several are also available for iPhone and iPod Touch). These apps are all free or close enough, with the exception of Documents To Go. They can all be downloaded from the Android Market:

Productivity/document management stuff (or “tricks you wish you could teach your smart phone”)

1. Blackmoon File Browser (allows all kinds of Gmail attachments, not just images and PDFs). This is a must-have if you want to attach anything other than photos to your emails.
2. Astro: A free file manager that lets you navigate around your phone and SD card, unzip files, etc. It also allows an “Open As” option  — so you can open word docs as text, etc.
3. DroidBox: If you store your files on DropBox, DroidBox is worth the $1-2.
4. NewsRob: A nice, free news reader that syncs to GoogleReader. I still like BeyondPod for nice podcast/news reader integration on Android. You can set it up to grab your favorite podcasts on a schedule, or only if there is wifi around. It’s worth the few dollars they want.
5. Docs Pics: This app lets you connect with Google Docs and upload/download your latest docs and photos.
6. Documents To Go: The free version lets you view and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files (along with PDFs, but that doesn’t matter as much now that Adobe Reader for Android is out). I don’t normally need to edit Office documents from my phone, but it’s nice to be able to pull it off in a pinch so I paid for the full app when I saw it for $10.
7. ROM Manager: This app does a nice job simplifying the process of updating new ROMs and backing up old ones for those of us who use Cyanogen Mod and other custom Android system software. CM Updater is also nice, and basically acts as an alternative to the over-the-air updates for rooted Android phones.

Fun and games:

1. doubleTwist is an app that allows Android devices to integrate more smoothly with iTunes, including sending existing iTunes playlists to Android. This surely beats recreating the same playlists on Android!
2. Movies is a must-have. It pulls in show times, trailers, and Rotten Tomatoes reviews. Plus it also integrates with Flickster, Facebook, and even Netflix. This is the best app I have found for filling up my instant and movie queues from my Android phone.
3. Twitter is the “official” app and is pretty nice, although I still sometimes prefer the clean interface of Twidroid. If you are into Twitter you may as well try both free apps and see which you prefer.
4. C:geo is a sweet little geocaching app. Probably the best I’ve ever found on any platform for locating geocaches in the field. If you know what geocaching is, you’ll know why this is cool. If not, move on.
5. GPS Logger is one I haven’t used much, but it promises to be a favorite. It’s a data logger that lets you record location data while you take pictures with your digital camera. Assuming the date/time of your camera and Android device are the same, you can use the file GPS Logger creates to geotag your photos using something like GPSPhotoLinker (Mac only) or GPicSync (Mac/PC/Linux). Your geotagged photos will look exactly the same, but each one will have hidden location data that Picasa, Flickr, iPhoto, and other apps can use to plot your photos on a map. This is awesome if you like to hike or travel!
6. My Tracks is the best tracking app I have found. Allows users to records their hikes, runs, rides, trips, etc. and share the trip via Google Maps, or export the raw data points via GPX, KML, or CSV. RideTrac and Trail Guru are also good apps, but I like My Tracks better for its clean user interface and seamless Google Maps integration. I think I can use My Tracks to record the same data I need to go back and geotag my photos as well, and if this is the case it would be the clear choice.
7. Tux Rider only works on newer phones like the Droid and the Nexus One, and I think it’s because it has some kind of 3D graphics acceleration going on. If you have one of these devices, it’s definitely worth a try. It’s the Android version of Tux Racer, and you steer by tipping the device from side to side. I think there is an iPhone/iPod Touch version out as well.
8. Gem Miner is a very addictive little game that lets you play the role of a miner, digging gems, buying equipment, etc. Very fun!

Related Posts:

• How To Root Your G1 Android Phone (and why you might want to)
• The Complete Guide To Importing Contacts Into Android’s Gmail
• Upgrading Android G1 From Older CyanogenMod Versions to 4.2.3.1
• B&N Nook: I run Android!! Please root me!!
• 10 months with an Android

Android, Reviews Android, apps, Reviews, smart phone

Ever since YouTube’s official auto-captioning feature launch in early March 2010 (with a private beta back in November 2009), I can’t stop thinking about the enormous significance for OER and for the web in general. It’s huge.

As you probably know, David Wiley was recently able to convince Sal Khan of the Khan Academy to start using a CC-BY license on his 1200+ educational videos. Since all of Sal’s Open Educational Resources (yes, we can call it OER now) are delivered via YouTube they benefit from Google’s yummy, new auto-transcription and auto-translation features. I have experimented with viewing Sal’s video mini-lectures with both English and French captions. The English audio transcription seems fairly accurate, and the French translation (auto-generated from the English subtitles) has a little more that is “lost in auto-translation.” This definitely deserves it’s “beta” label, but it is impressive nonetheless when you consider it is all auto-generated.

So what does video auto-captioning mean for OER?

• accessibility
• discoverability
• searchability
• low-bandwidth access

Once you have an easy way to transcribe video content, several new possibilities open up. While not perfect, the auto-captioned content is definitely more accessible to users with visual and/or aural disabilities. (I just hope future iterations of auto-captioning will allow the content author to invite/approve users to edit these auto-captions, similar to the dotSub model.) But increased accessibility is only one way we can benefit. Now that you have captions, you can search them. Auto-captioning will make it possible to find a particular video on the web, or even a particular segment within a video using a keyword search. Soon you will “Google” through video for a particular scene. MIT is already doing video search (see their Lecture Browser and Spoken Media Project). Finally, raw text video transcriptions use less bandwidth than the original video content, which meets another critical need: access in low-bandwidth areas or places where the cost of bandwidth can be prohibitive. I’ll stop there for now, but it is clear to me that with the explosion of online videos and related rich media, video auto-captioning is a major step forward for the web.

Related Posts:

• OER Access and Accessibility Session Live and on Twitter!

OER accessibility, auto-captioning, OER, transcription, video, YouTube

Let me start with a video clip. I came across this video by Soomo Publishing, a group I learned at the Connexions 2010 conference. (Soomo is in the business of creating “ready-to-use collections of rich web assignments” using a student subscription model.) Soomo takes some liberties at the end of the video, so if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool historian you may want to skip over this one.

I think this clip is brilliant.

It is exactly this kind of virally catchy, think-outside-the-box content that can pique students’ interest in a particular historical event.

But this is only a hook.

With the proper questions and encouragement, a teacher can help students unpack the meaning of something like the Soomo clip on the American Revolution. Video is not just entertainment. Viewing the clip can lead to some interesting classroom discussions if the teacher is willing to listen as well as lecture. Master teachers are able to adapt last year’s lesson to this year’s students. This kind of teaching takes more effort than one-way lecture because it requires giving students more control, more two-way interaction.

That’s the whole point of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 gives users more control. It’s a 2-way “conversation” that starts with a web page projecting information in one direction and allows the audience to respond with comments, ratings, user-generated video, status messages, etc. Some of the most successful sites have figured out how to give their users more of a voice. They are no longer simply readers, viewers, or users. They are contributors. Schools can learn a great deal from the Web 2.0 movement. People (including students) want to participate, not just watch or read.

Don’t stop there.

I think it would be great if students could dig into some of the great online sources to research and collaboratively create a reenactment of a particular historical event. A project I am involved with is helping teachers to do just that. TwHistory.org helps teachers, students, and history enthusiasts to create historical reenactments using Twitter. More info for teachers is available on the TwHistory teacher’s corner. Are you concerned about the implications of using Web 2.0 tools in schools? So am I. These tools have huge potential. I would even compare it to the invention of paper.

Let’s ban paper too.

Blocking Twitter, YouTube, and other social media sites is like banning access to paper in schools because it could be used to read, write, or draw something inappropriate. I taught at a public high school, in a computer-based classroom for 5 years. I understand the issues. Educational consultant Chris O’Neal said it well at the start of a YouTube teacher tutorial he made for Edutopia: “I think of YouTube as, like a giant video flea market. Lots of cool finds mixed in with a lot of crazy junk.” So let’s start by unblocking YouTube in schools (or perhaps finding a suitable alternative, such as TeacherTube, SchoolTube, or Edublogs TV). Social media sites like YouTube are today’s creative canvas.

Related Posts:

• Teaching Tolerance through TwHistory?
• Historical Reenactments – Teaching with Twitter
• An opportunity for TwHistory
• TwHistory at ICLS 2010
• TTIX 2010 TwHistory Presentation: Tweeting From the Titanic

Web 2.0 education, history, learning, public schools, twhistory, web 2.0