Tom Caswell

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  • No travel budget: Why I go anyway

    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.)

    IMG_7041

  • TwHistory at ICLS 2010

    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!

    TwHistory ICLS poster

  • TTIX 2010 TwHistory Presentation: Tweeting From the Titanic

    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.

  • Hal Plotkin Keynote on Open Educational Resources

    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.

  • My 140th Blog Post: Tweets on Open Education

    In honor of my 140th blog post on https://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.