I am the community lead for the Zotero project at the Center for History and New Media and a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University. I am interested in open source platforms for learning and research, games and learning, and the history of science education. Before coming to the CHNM I worked for the Games, Learning, and Society Conference.
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- tjowens: Civ City: Rome more fun than I thought. Neat to see your citizens living their lives. Still, games about logistics get monotonous fast
- tjowens: So far #oneweek one tool http://bit.ly/bQ0XwU is infinitely better than the competing #toolacademy http://bit.ly/dbEF9r
- tjowens: Day so far; Castle Crashers, coffee, vinyasa, Assassin's Creed. Up next; sandwich, trader joes, write proposal, dinner and movie
- tjowens: @briancroxall it is! Also, the diversity of the session formats at GLS really keeps it interesting. Great model to follow.
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History
Science Grows On Trees: The History of Science and Technology Acording to Video Games
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009I think historians and sociologists of science might be surprised to learn that video game designers spend a considerable amount of time and energy building playable models of the history of science and technology. In game design circles these systems are commonly referred to as “Technology Trees“. Below is an example of one of these [...]
Keep Reading » 7Visualization and History: Hint, It’s Not About Pictures
Sunday, February 1st, 2009If your into history and computers, and looking for a mildly trippy read, break open a bottle of wine and spend three of four hours reading through David Staley’s Computers Visualization and History. Staley’s central, somewhat provocative, contention is that there is nothing natural or automatic about historians choice to communicate through writing. Like some [...]
Keep Reading » 013 Free Online History Games
Thursday, January 29th, 2009This is a quick smattering from the hundreds of different free online history games and interactives I have come across. This slice of the history games web underscores a few key points behind building the Playing History collaborative directory. First, the list gives a quick sense of the different diversity of groups making history games. [...]
Keep Reading » 0Creating History In New Media
Monday, January 26th, 2009I am excited to taking Jeremy Boggs course “Creating History In New Media” to round out my MA in American History. The syllabus is pretty exciting, if a bit overwhelming, mix of tech skills (HTML, CSS and using WordPress and Omeka) with readings in project management and process for web design. If your into this [...]
Keep Reading » 7Scientists in Action: Front Door Iconography At The National Academy Of Sciences
Saturday, January 10th, 2009As I’ve mentioned before I have been looking at the Einstein memorial on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences as a interesting spot to think about science in public. In working on the project I have been trying to find points of comparison, other statues of scientists or presentations of scientists, ideally in [...]
Keep Reading » 135 Views Of Einstein From 2100 C St. NW
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008I’m working on a piece about the the Albert Einstein Memorial outside the National Academy of sciences. One of the facets I am exploring is the way in which the monument suggests photos to visitors. Many reviews of the monument on travel websites mention “photogenic” the monument is. Among other things it’s a place for [...]
Keep Reading » 1The History Channel Manages To Drop Below Even The Lowest Of Expectations
Friday, November 28th, 2008I know the history channel is bad, but seriously. This is their afternoon line up. Three hours of hunting UFOs a show about the Antichrist “The Universe” and two hours on the secrets of body language.
Keep Reading » 0Making Book Labels With Zotero
Monday, November 24th, 2008To the left you can see a sample of some of my labeled books. It may not be particularly pretty, but those labels do exactly what I wan them to do. Display information, have only a limited chance to damage my books, and cost me practically nothing. In this post I will walk through how [...]
Keep Reading » 0Touching the National Mall
Thursday, November 20th, 2008I really like how you can tell just how frequently the Park’s services maps on the National mall are used by how worn the areas around the Lincoln Memorial and Washington monument have become. As you look at the worn spots around these two monuments you can picture the hundreds of thousands of tourists that [...]
Keep Reading » 0Disney Goes Atomic
Friday, June 20th, 2008In 1956 Disney published Our Friend the Atom as a compliment to a film and exhibition by the same name. The book uses a fable of a fishermen and a genie to explain the relation between people and atomic science, and the book strangely simultaneously offers much scarier visuals of the destructive power of atomic [...]
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