Vannevar Bush's Vision
In 1945 Vannevar Bush, an inventor and engineer, coined term 'trails' in his seminal essay entitled 'As We May Think'. Mr. Bush conceived of a product he called the Memex, which would enable a user to create a trail of linked and annotated pages. The idea was to annotate pages while you research a topic. Each note would be linked to the next note in the trail. Trails would be used to share your knowledge, the result of your research and with a dash of your insight.
I co-founded a company by the name of Trailfire with this same goal in mind. Vannevar Bush was unable to realize this vision. He, of course, lived in a time before the internet. It was simply impractical, in a world of paper documents and microfilm, to make his vision into a reality. Fast forward 60 years and his idea is not only possible, it exists. You can experience it at Trailfire.com.
At Trailfire we asked ourselves these simple questions. How could we enable people to share their knowledge and ideas on the web? How could people help each other discover information? We built this product with broad application, one that could be used by the average web user.
It did not take us long, however, to discover that Trailfire will work well in the classroom. Teachers are using Trailfire to guide their students to web pages that contain information relevant to their course work. Students can ask questions along the trails or even add their own comments. In sense, Trailfire takes the notion of collaborative learning out onto the web and places it context on any web page.
I'm excited about the possibilities of using Trailfire in the classroom. I welcome you all to try out this free service and tell us how we can make a better tool for education.
I co-founded a company by the name of Trailfire with this same goal in mind. Vannevar Bush was unable to realize this vision. He, of course, lived in a time before the internet. It was simply impractical, in a world of paper documents and microfilm, to make his vision into a reality. Fast forward 60 years and his idea is not only possible, it exists. You can experience it at Trailfire.com.
At Trailfire we asked ourselves these simple questions. How could we enable people to share their knowledge and ideas on the web? How could people help each other discover information? We built this product with broad application, one that could be used by the average web user.
It did not take us long, however, to discover that Trailfire will work well in the classroom. Teachers are using Trailfire to guide their students to web pages that contain information relevant to their course work. Students can ask questions along the trails or even add their own comments. In sense, Trailfire takes the notion of collaborative learning out onto the web and places it context on any web page.
I'm excited about the possibilities of using Trailfire in the classroom. I welcome you all to try out this free service and tell us how we can make a better tool for education.
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Comment by Skip Zilla on May 10, 2007 at 4:01pm -
John,
Thanks for developing a great Web service for easily documenting where you've been in traveling through cyberspace. I see, not only a teacher providing customized trails for students, but also a student leaving a trail for another student. I think there are great potential uses for Trailfire that students and educators (and you) have yet to discover! Thanks.
Skip
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Comment by John OHalloran on May 10, 2007 at 4:08pm
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Thanks. We need input from teachers and students to make a better product. We want to hear from you. So, please tell us how we can make it better.
And, we want to get the word out to the education community. I'm not quite sure how to do this. I welcome your advice.
Thanks.
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Comment by Skip Zilla on May 10, 2007 at 5:13pm
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John,
Folks here at Classroom 2,0 are swamped with new Web 2.0 tools to try out for possible use. Keep posting here, however, but when you do, provide a link to a compelling demo that immediately communicates value for classroom use. There are lots of good ideas flying around here. Make sure each one of your posts contains a scenario in which your demo applies, including for what age level it's intended and for what subject area. Find some "angels" among classroom educators you know to help you create the scenarios and demos.
Once folks here recognize an authentic, readily applied use for Trailfire, after mimicing your demo in a trial lesson of their own, they'll spread the word. Then, it's just a matter of listening for comments about Trailfire's usability and by responding to them effectively.
I'm not a classroom educator. But I use Trailfire as an individual user and see its uniqueness and value. I predict that it will become a commonly used teaching/learning tool in time.
Skip
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Comment by Ginger Lewman on May 10, 2007 at 8:20pm
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Trailfire seems like something I can use right now in my classroom. My students have been doing some research on famous Kansans (there really are quite a few) and one thought she'd be lazy and just create an internet resource list for her product.
I think a Trailfire, blazed for a Langston Hughes research project would be a useful trail for many others! I've re-proposed her own idea to her, conceeding that I knew she wasn't really serious with her first idea (and she truly wasn't serious), but that I'd LOVE for her to do something with Trailfire.
She'll get the email in the morning and I think she'll be DELIGHTED to share her blazed trail with the rest of the class!
Thanks for posting this...I'll post other ideas that come up for this tool and also any stumbling blocks we encounter.
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Great. I would like to here what the students think of Trailfire. What would make it more engaging, more fun?
Comment
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