Twistoric

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8UTYEGQnFM
Our project shows evolution of universe, explains origin of life (according to the two theories) and finally man and his timeline. Basically, what we want to show through this project is that things, we see and we know about, don’t come out of nowhere. It’s the reason why it gives general knowledge about science and history with the objective of educating in a new attractive way, which will stimulate the interest for learning of the people.

This project is solving the We Love Data challenge.

Description

A collaborative history of the Universe, the Earth and mankind in Twitter posts and Memes by its main characters, observers or narrators. Each tweet/meme is enhanced with geolocation, chronological information as well as pictures, videos and additional information.

Timelines of Events

Special milestones and some random fun events are chosen to tell 3 stories and timelines:

  • History of the Universe.
  • History of the World.
  • History of Mankind.

Characters (Tweeters)

Historic and fictional characters are created to post the tweets. More than one character can tweet on a specific event to promote critical thinking. For example:

  • Adam can post on the appearance of Man on Earth from a Judeo-Christian creationist point of view while an Alien can post from a scientific perspective and yet other religious characters can tweet their story of the creation of mankind.
  • A Haitian revolutionary can announce Haiti's Independence with joy while a French officer would have a very different tweet post.
  • A time traveller can tweet about the Big Bang while God announces "Let there be light", etc.

The students decided to create an initial set of characters as "authors" of the tweets: * Gaia (Earth), Nody (Dinosaur), Bruce (Caveman), Tsunu (Military General), Alex (Storyteller), Tobo (Technician), Alfred (Scientist), Mardix (Alien), Arthur (Astronaut).

The Methodology

  • Students worked together making lists of important events in history.
  • Each would choose 10 events in different fields: Universe, Haiti, Technology, Sports, Film, Music and Arts, etc.
  • Students created 10 fictional characters to write the tweets.
  • Students wrote 2 tweets, each by a different characters for each of their 10 events to provide alternative perspectives.
  • Students created 1 meme for each of their event.
  • Students post their tweets in the Twistoric platform.
  • Students research and enhance their events with additional information: Video(s), Geolocation, Picture(s), Date(s), Related Link(s).

The Team

This project is being developed by high school students of Collège Catts Pressoir at the Ecole Supérieure d'Infotronique d'Haïti (ESIH) in Port-au-Prince with the supervision of educators from the Educar.org team.


Project Information

License: Creative Commons BY 3.0
Source Code/Project URL: http://portal.educar.org/twistoric

Resources