{"id":768,"date":"2013-04-20T16:18:16","date_gmt":"2013-04-20T16:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=768"},"modified":"2013-04-20T16:18:16","modified_gmt":"2013-04-20T16:18:16","slug":"histochat-how-to-enable-our-students-to-chat-with-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/histochat-how-to-enable-our-students-to-chat-with-history\/","title":{"rendered":"HistoChat: How To Enable Our Students To Chat with History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Finspiredtoeducate.net%2Finspiredtoeducate%2Fhistochat-how-to-enable-our-students-to-chat-with-history%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 2px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n<p>What happens when you put the following ingredients together?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1 bright college student who has a passion for entertainment technology, drama, and computer science.<\/li>\n<li>1 artful user experience designer who loves researching human computer interaction.<\/li>\n<li>1 software engineer who likes to push the limits of machine learning and artificial intelligence.<\/li>\n<li>1 mission:\u00a0to invent something cool to support great teaching and learning?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After studying various chatbot frameworks, collaborative proposal writing, and hard work, we are proud to present the HistoChat Kickstarter project.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meet HistoChat<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>HistoChat is an open-source, modular chatbot service that connects students with historical figures to make history cool again.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1302746742\/histochat-chat-with-history-be-a-part-of-history\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-769\" title=\"histochat\" src=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/histochat.jpg\" alt=\"histochat\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/histochat.jpg 640w, https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/histochat-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meet Patrick Mathis, Creator of the HistoChat Kickstarter Project<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Patrick Mathis, a college student at Mercer University, came up with an answer. My software team and I had the pleasure of meeting Patrick through a technical communications class devoted to writing proposals. My team and I served as technical mentors to this class. In the spirit of project based learning, we challenged Patrick and his fellow students to collaborate with us to create innovations in educational technology. Since our generation is greatly influenced by mobile technology and gaming, we asked them to consider creating game based learning experiences.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick and his team proposed the following question:\u00a0 \u201cCould we inspire the study of history by enabling students to talk with major historical figures of the past?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Could we make it possible for students to with talk with Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, or Martin Luther King, Jr? \u00a0\u00a0This sort of experience is explored by science fiction all the time! Consider the following example from \u201cStar Trek: the Next Generation.\u201d \u00a0In this scene, Commander Data using their Holodeck technology converses with Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, and Steven Hawkings as part of his personal study of humanities.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mg8_cKxJZJY\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sounds crazy right?<\/p>\n<p>It turns out the research for meeting historical characters using technology has already started. Patrick and his team introduced our team to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepa.duq.edu\/darwin\/synthetic_interview.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u201csynthetic interview\u201d research from Carnegie Mellon University<\/a>. \u00a0In their study, students could ask questions of Charles Darwin.<\/p>\n<p>During the HistoChat Kickstarter Project, we will be producing an open-source, modular chatbot service that connects students with historical figures to inspire the study of history.\u00a0 This will follow the spirit of the \u201csynthetic interview\u201d research from Carnegie Mellon.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0From a natural language processing perspective, we are also interested in pushing the limits of the chat bots medium using ChatScript by Bruce Wilcox.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most chat bots found on the Internet pattern match on simple keywords and strings.\u00a0\u00a0 The ChatScript platform can pattern match on concepts while keeping a concise and clean syntax.\u00a0\u00a0 For more details, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/feature\/134675\/beyond_fa%C3%A7ade_pattern_matching_.php?print=1\" target=\"_blank\">please visit the following article from Gamasutra<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thank you\u2019s!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Walt Disney once said that \u201cAll our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.\u201d\u00a0 My team has been very excited that Patrick has chosen to collaborate with <a href=\"http:\/\/engineering.mercer.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mercer Engineering Research Center<\/a> on this project.\u00a0\u00a0 We really appreciate Patrick\u2019s extra time and effort in forming the vision for this project and the proposal video. \u00a0 When we successfully fund the HistoChat Kickstarter project, we are excited to offer him a position on the team that will bring HistoChat to the teaching community.<\/p>\n<p>We are also thankful to the leadership of <a href=\"http:\/\/engineering.mercer.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mercer Engineering Research Center<\/a>, professors at <a href=\"http:\/\/departments.mercer.edu\/tco-undergraduate\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mercer University Department of Technical Communication<\/a>, and leadership of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mercer.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mercer University<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As a young professional, I am inspired by the spirit of collaboration to help foster creative project based learning experiences for students.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How can you help?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To our family of InspiredToEducate readers and #edtech community, we need your help to bring Patrick\u2019s vision for HistoChat to students.\u00a0 Please visit our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1302746742\/histochat-chat-with-history-be-a-part-of-history\" target=\"_blank\">HistoChat Kickstarter page and consider backing Patrick\u2019s proposal.<\/a><\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1302746742\/histochat-chat-with-history-be-a-part-of-history\" target=\"_blank\">HistoChat: Chat With History<\/a><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Other posts on InspiredToEducate.Net:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"How to Fund Your Cause or Idea with Crowd Funding?\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=761\" target=\"_blank\">How to Fund Your Cause or Idea with Crowd Funding?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"7 Lessons Learned from Teaching Students to propose an Idea for Kickstarter\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=724\" target=\"_blank\">7 Lessons Learned from Teaching Students to propose an Idea for Kickstarter<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"5 ways to get more results in your teaching environment.\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=246\" target=\"_blank\">5 ways to get more results in your teaching environment<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Want to build team collaboration, communication, and productivity? Make work visible!\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=706\" target=\"_blank\">Want to build team collaboration, communication, and productivity? Make work visible!<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"7 ideas for creating a student centered learning environment by Paul Andersen\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=374\" target=\"_blank\">7 ideas for creating a student centered learning environment by Paul Andersen<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"5 reasons to love Khan academy for computer science\" href=\"http:\/\/rosarioconsulting.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=202\" target=\"_blank\">5 reasons to love Khan academy for computer science<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Finspiredtoeducate.net%2Finspiredtoeducate%2Fhistochat-how-to-enable-our-students-to-chat-with-history%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 2px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What happens when you put the following ingredients together? 1 bright college student who has a passion for entertainment technology, drama, and computer science. 1 artful user experience designer who loves researching human computer interaction. 1 software engineer who likes to push the limits of machine learning and artificial intelligence. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,11,3,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":774,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions\/774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}