#chronozoom

Coming back from TCEA 16 in Austin, it is pretty clear to me that Microsoft and Google are in an all out war for the hearts and minds of educators to use their tools in the classroom. (Where were you Apple?) Here are some of the tools that the Microsoft folks talked about publicly (there are more coming but I swore myself to secrecy…) and frankly, they are starting to stack up pretty nicely to the Google tools.

Coming back from TCEA 16 in Austin, it is pretty clear to me that Microsoft and Google are in an all out war for the hearts and minds of educators to use their tools in the classroom. (Where were you Apple?)

Here are some of the tools that the Microsoft folks talked about publicly (there are more coming but I swore myself to secrecy...) and frankly, they are starting to stack up pretty nicely to the Google tools.

Today I had the awesome opportunity to chat with some folks at Microsoft Research about some really incredible elearning stuff. One of the things we discussed was ChronoZoom, a project he's been working on. It's at it's core, a scaled map of history that is open source, and can be fit into any teacher's curriculum to show the scale of history. However, I think once this gets out and folks start playing with it, there's some really amazing possibilities.

pime taradox!

One thing I'd like to see is it combining with Google Maps or some similar online mapping software, in a way where you could click on a spot in Chronozoom (say, 1750) and it would pop up events occurring in random places geographically. So, for example, you move the slider in Chronozoom to 1750*, and click on the Earth logo. There, in a simplified Earth view, you can zoom to various locations and see what's going on, possibly collecting some data from Wikipedia (a cool history teacher could give his students credit for placing the event pins in their correct geographic location).

So, imagine a tool that you could use to travel through time, then view what's going on in Earth at that time. Various tools could highlight warring regions, catastrophes, or migrations. You could zoom into a region, and see where significant figures are being born, dying, or events are occurring.

Imagine being a student and having this resource.

Hell, imagine being bored and having this on a rainy weekend. I wouldn't go to bed till 4am.

I'll probably have more information on Chronozoom soon. This is a really, really exciting educational technology. TELL YOUR FRIENDS. TELL YOUR TEACHERS. IF YOU HAVE TEACHERS WHO ARE ALSO FRIENDS, TELL THEM TO TALK TO ME. (ABOUT CHRONOZOOM AND MAYBE ELEARNING AND PROBABLY COOL BUGS.)

Chrohozoom. La mínima historia interactiva de la humanidad.

Ayer os recomendaba un enlace y un vídeo sobre la escala del universo. Justo hoy he encontrado algo en la misma línea pero esta vez sobre el tiempo.

Basado en el campo de la Big History, el proyecto ChronoZoom es una herramienta construida con HTML5 y que presenta un time-line que abarca desde el Big-bang hasta el mundo contemporáneo.

ChronoZoom: Zoom and Explore the History of the Universe

ChronoZoom is an ambitious project by UC Berkeley, Moscow State University and Microsoft Research to create a universal timeline of . . . well, everything. Trace the history of the cosmos all the way down to modern times, and get an idea of the scale of time, this microsecond of the universe's existence that we are living in.

Of course, you don't get the full experience of these tools without experiencing the trip down the rabbit hole, so I made this video showing the trip from Albert Einstein back to the Big Bang.

Previously: The amazing interactive scale of the universe!