Tom's Two Cents

Here is a press release that went out to Wired, CNN, AP, and some other media outlets earlier today. I hope it gets picked up by one of them. It’s been a fun project so far, and this is just the beginning. Enjoy!

Contact: TOM CASWELL
Email: caswell [dot] tom [at] gmail [dot] com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
9 A.M. MST, April 28, 2009

TWEETING THE CIVIL WAR
LOGAN, UTAH, APRIL 27, 2009: TWHISTORY.COM introduces the Civil War to a techno-savvy generation using actual 19th century journals cropped down to twitter-size updates. Now users can follow the day-by-day accounts of the Civil War from actual participants, all on Twitter.

Twitter, a microblogging tool that allows users to send updates in 140 characters or less, might be a relatively new tool, but Marion Jensen, Director of OpenCourseWare at Utah State University, thinks that by applying the tool to the 19th century, people can gain new appreciation for Civil War history.

Using original sources such as diaries and journals of soldiers in the battle, Jensen and other volunteers tweet what that person did on a particular day. “So if a particular soldier had beans for breakfast on April 26, 1863, I twitter for that person on April 26, 2009: ‘had beans for breakfast.’”  Jensen says. Each soldier will be at or near Gettysburg at the time of famous Civil War Battle. The soldiers can be followed at http://twhistory.com

Jensen says that by following many soldiers over the course of days and weeks, one can really get a feel for what life was like back in the Civil war. “Each person doesn’t say a lot, but when you read all of the tweets in concert, you begin to get a picture of the whole story.”

Jensen is twittering both Union soldiers and generals, as well as those who fought for the Confederacy. “We are also twittering a newspaper, as well as President Lincoln.”

Jensen says he will follow these characters through the Battle of Gettysburg, in early July. “After the Gettysburg, we may continue on with these characters, or we may start a new project. Possible future projects include the Cuban Missile Crisis or the proceedings of the Continental Congress.”

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I first got interested in barcodes and mobile phones when I discovered I could scan UPC at the store and look up prices and reviews from my G1 Google phone. ShopSavvy and Compare Everywhere are still two of the most popular Android apps on the Android Market. But a recent post to the UNESCO OER list led me to think about applying 2D barcodes to mobile learning.

At a very basic level, I can imagine a lecture where the last powerpoint slide is a 2D barcode which includes the presenter’s contact info or a link to the presentation on slideshare. and a URL. 2D barcodes are quite common in Japan, in magazines and on billboards. For those with a camera-enabled cell phone, there’s no need to write down the URL or contact info.

I am part of a graduate class that is designing a location-based game for a local museum. We are putting a lot of time designing a game that will work on PCs and a limited number of GPS-enbled, PocketPC and Garmin devices using an application called WhereIGo. But what if the same game could be designed using 2D barcodes, so that anyone with a web-enabled camera phone could play? More and more cell phones now come with built-in 2D barcode readers, not just smart phones. Does anyone know of a game engine that uses 2D barcode readers? Just curious.

So how do you make these fancy barcodes, you ask? One of the easiest ways is on a site called Kaywa. Anyone can create a 2D barcode that represents a web link, a vCard, a phone number, or some hidden text (like a clue or something). Another option is called Snappr.net. But unfortunately, Snappr.net insists on linking back to itself, even for basic contact info. So don’t use it if you want an independent 2D barcode that doesn’t require web access. Still, Snappr.net has some neat functionality like the barcodes survey below. Instead of banning cell phones from our public schools, why don’t we start using them to engage students and other learners?

Here is a 2D barcode that will load a survey. You can take it from almost any mobile phone with a camera and web access. (If you don’t already have barcode scanner for your phone, visit http://code.google.com/p/zxing/wiki/GetTheReader.)

If you want to read more here’s an interesting post on mobile learning with 2D barcodes: http://www.cellphonesinlearning.com/2008/07/qr-codesintegration-into-learning.html. It looks like a company called BrightCookie is already working on making this technology work in Moodle. I would like to see it implemented as a mobile game.

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If you like OpenCourseWare and Facebook, you need to check out CourseFeed.

CourseFeed started out as a virtual classroom app that supported Blackboard announcements and content, but it is growing into much more. Currently CourseFeed allows anyone on Facebook to add OCW courses from Stanford, Notre Dame, and Utah State University. The class wall allows anyone to discuss the course materials. CourseFeed is a simple concept, and yet a big step toward personalized, lifelong learning!

Check it out here: http://apps.facebook.com/coursefeed/?display=landingPage

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Do you know what I do with openly licensed YouTube videos when I think they are worthwhile? I copy the YouTube link and paste it over on dotSub.com. (DotSub can import directly from YouTube.) Why do I do this? Because YouTube isn’t very useful if you are deaf or don’t speak English.  DotSub.com allows anyone to come along and add a transcription or a translation in another language. I don’t know why YouTube doesn’t support this. It’s so easy to do. C’mon Google, what’s the harm in allowing translations like dotSub? If you don’t have time to develop it, just get out your checkbook and buy dotSub. It’s the least you can do as a huge-but-not-evil tech company.

Here’s the The Networked Student on dotSub: http://dotsub.com/view/41f08de7-68dc-4365-af4c-5733f565b9e1 Subtitles are offered in English, Czech, Portuguese, and Spanish.

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century. Anyone is free to use this video for educational purposes. You may download, translate, or use as part of another presentation. Please share.

Edit: Rob points out in his comment that YouTube does support subtitles, but I see no attempt to allow others to contribute translations. I understand that this adds complexity and the possibility of malicious translations, but dotSub.com provides an easy translation interface and allows the owner of the video to control which users can translate.

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How would you write a story with GoogleMaps? It turns out that Charles Cumming has done it, and it’s very clever. I ended up reading the whole thing: http://wetellstories.co.uk/stories/week1/ The 21 Steps is a real page turner — except there aren’t any pages. Just GoogleMaps bubbles. If you have a chance to read it, let me know what you think of the format.

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