This is what we're planning for the I Live Over Here website. A free blogging website designed for easy and free participation. Classes from around the world join a global community, so that participant classes can comment on each other's posts and learn ways of global, digital citizenship. It's a meeting place to find collaborations, and a springboard for classes to continue the discussion on their own blogs. It's a very basic form of social networking to introduce schools and teachers who want to dip their toes in without technical and bureaucratic complications within different education systems.

The site and accompanying free iPod Touch/iPad app can browse this data, but also the much richer content from classes that have created a "full app's worth".

If the classes wanted to create an app that have a full range of content (beyond 3 posts with matching 360pano photos) - their own "app" with augmented reality and a broad listing of entries and locations, that's when they commit to purchasing a class licence (probably around $15 per class, and comes with a range of curriculum and guidelines for teachers, as well as full access to the content management system behind the app, which allows the entries to be created.)

The opportunities for the app are much wider than a "tourism" app. Here are some examples from teachers who've contacted us about how they might use the app:

- a high school Indonesian language teacher in Perth, Australia would like her students to create a resource for Indonesian immigrants to find local resources in the city of Perth. Her students would do the research, translate into Indonesian and make it freely available for the local Indonesian community in Australia.

- an elementary science teacher who lives near the Great Lakes in the USA would like her students to research, photograph and write about the local wildlife. She sees it as an opportunity for children to learn about their local habitat, conservation and be a resource to share and collaborate with science classes in other countries.

- language arts plus drama, with a twist of transliteracy. There are games on mobile phones that use location based data, ranging from FourSquare to Shadow Cities. Students can create fictional narratives in their local communities (imagine a spy mystery etc.), enact a performance with photography and audio. As others visit the locations, a narrative is gradually pierced together by discovering a full picture.

Some influences from around the web...

Toni Ford @toniford took her class to Amsterdam and documented their excursion as a blog. Note how the student created work unites literacy, photography and geography skills? However, this is a web 2.0 "document". The students are writing to the world, and invite comments, which are also published on their site.

This is a view of their home page. Imagine each town looking a bit like this.

Here's a blog entry on one specific visit.

A larger version of a 360 pano. Click here to view it full screen.

Imagine visiting virtual tours of classes and cities around the world, contributed by children and youth. Other participating students see what has been achieved and are enticed to achieve this, with naturally accompanying learning. They can see on a website, and if they or a parent or teacher with an iPhone etc., easily do the same for $1 for the app, and free access to the website.

This is a photograph on top of a hotel in Singapore from my recent family vacation. Click here to see it full screen.

Ugandan Global Project 2010