Bitstrips is an online tool for quickly and simply creating web comics, and the company has just launched a new product custom-tailored for the classroom. Kids get to be creative; teachers get a new, interactive tool to reinforce learning; and everyone goes home smarter and happier.

While the service has remained relatively under-the-radar, Bitstrips has managed to suss out their revenue streams and remains 100 percent bootstrapped, according to an email we received from co-founder Jesse Brown today. With Bitstrips for Schools, the company is offering a subscription-based service, adding even more revenue to their budget.

"We sold a license to the Ontario Ministry of Education," he wrote. "It just launched six days ago, and over 15,000 students have already signed up. They've been making over 1,000 comic strips a day."

Basic accounts give users (a.k.a. teachers) one private and secure virtual classroom; space for up to 40 students in each class; unlimited saved activities, comic strips, and characters; and unlimited use of the Shared Activities Library. They're also remarkably affordable at a $.9.95 monthly subscription rate. For $29.95 a month, users (a.k.a. schools) can purchase a package that includes up to six classrooms with space for 40 students each.

Now for the fun part: the comics! Check out this promo/demo video showing the software hard at work in a real classroom environment:

Students, individually or as collaborators, create characters and choose from a variety of scenes and props to create comic strips, which they can then share, print, and comment on. Teachers can review comics as they are created.

We can see kids having a ton of fun with this tool and learning a lot about design, content creation, and media while they're at it. The site also points out that comics could be an especially good tool for students of foreign languages.

Finally, we had to take the app for a test drive. We had a lot of fun - the interface is extremely intuitive and works well for kids of all ages. We'll be showing it to the kids in our lives, and we recommend that teachers give the 14-day free trial a shot, as well!

For those of you who are not teachers, we suggest taking a look at classic Bitstrips, where you can create your very own tech scene-themed versions of Family Circus. Or something less nerdy/ironic, if you prefer.

ReadWriteWeb has already written about data visualization capabilities in sites like Second Life. Due to a fledgling economy, many suggested that these institutionally-branded education initiatives may also become popular. Nevertheless, apart from this recent endorsement by the University of Texas, mainstream educators still don't have the green light to teach in virtual worlds. Many argue that video teleconferencing and instant messaging have replaced the need for virtual world interaction. However, neither of these offer the same immersive experience.

While we know that face-to-face learning is currently the most successful teaching method, if you had to choose an online learning environment, would you consider a virtual world? Let us know in the comments below.

The demand for digital textbooks has grown tremendously, and Flat World has capitalized on this demand by offering students free online web browsing as well as $20 PDF versions, $30 black and white printed versions, $40 audio versions and $60 color print versions. The company also gains revenue through the sale of audio study guides, quizzes and flash cards.

When asked about the relationship between open textbooks and open courseware, Frank explained, "We embrace accessibility to education, but the one thing missing in many of these courses is the textbook itself. We're trying to bridge that gap with something inexpensive for students and modifiable for faculty."

Flat World Knowledge's textbooks are available for online viewing under a Creative Commons license, and educators have the freedom to edit and change them to suit their classroom needs. The company also offers premium PDF versions and is working on additional formats for the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader stores. However, these proprietary versions are certainly not the focus.

Says Frank, "Traditional textbooks have clearly failed students and instructors. Similarly, digital textbook trials that force a single format, device, or price point will also fail. No single e-reading format or device will ever satisfy all students. Our commercial open-source textbook approach puts control and the power of choice in the hands of students and instructors."

Rather than focusing on university partnerships, the company is committed to seeking out the best possible authors. Says Frank, "We're interested in focusing on the authors as part of our brand. For instance, Preston McAfee wrote one of our micro-economics books. If you work with the best authors, schools respond."

To see if your school is using Flat World Knowledge books, visit the company website.

For more college and university resources, check out Jolie O'Dell's ReadWriteWeb Back-to-School apps, or if you're researching upcoming courses, check out Courseopedia.

The App

The iPhone app itself is a decent eBook reader, though it suffers from the fact that the textbooks haven't been formatted for the small screen. Also, while the company's desktop readers allow students to take notes, the iPhone app can only read those (notes are stored on CourseSmart's servers).

Of course, the app really isn't meant as a student's only way to access the textbook, so these shortcomings can be forgiven. What's more important is that the app gives students an easy way to access their notes from anywhere. Thanks to the app's built-in search, it is also easy to quickly look up a fact.

Try It

If you want to give the app a try but don't want to lease a textbook, don't worry. CourseSmart includes a number of sample chapters from standard textbooks with the app.

2. Edutopia: The George Lucas Educational Foundation launched Edutopia in the hopes of creating educational best practices for multimedia in the classroom. The site includes online polls, curated blogs, assessment tools and a dedicated magazine for educators at the K-12 levels. The 2009 Webby Award winning site's best content is in its library of high-production videos for teachers and educators.

3. LearnHub: LearnHub is a network where members can create their own communities, share lessons, chat, create tests and tutor each other online at no cost. Schools create their own virtual classrooms where students complete assignments, play games and share photos and text. One of the great features of this site is that the site's report generator allows teachers to track users' progress. While the content is not as in-depth as Scitable's, this is a good site for standardized test preparation and basic K-12 education exercises. For more examples of test preparation sites, see our RWW list of resources.

4. Moodle: Moodle is a free open-source course management platform designed to help teachers create better online resources. Microsoft Education Labs recently announced a new Live@edu plug-in for Moodle. Now in addition to providing lesson plan, assignment and quiz-making tools for teachers, schools also gain access to Outlook Live for e-mail, Office Live Workspace for document sharing, Windows Messenger for chat and Windows Live SkyDrive for 25 GB of storage. This tool is slightly more advanced than some of the others in the industry, but it does offer a number of scalable solutions.

5. Edmodo: Edmodo is a private micro-blogging service for schools that allows teachers to edit privacy options within their virtual classrooms. Educators generate a join code and students log-in to chat, link to files, share notes and check their collective calendars for upcoming exams, quizzes and Pro-D days. While some of the other tools we've presented offer an open-access learning environment, this invite-only service offers students the chance to utilize web-based multimedia tools while allowing teachers to control an online discussion's security.

6. YouTube Edu: YouTube Edu allows students and educators to access lectures from leading educators across the country. For example, Yale and Brandeis University professors upload their lessons for public enjoyment. One of the most popular Channels is the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning - a collaboration launched by the Indian Institutes of Technology and Science in Bangalore.

7. ESL Video: ESL Video allows language educators to create quizzes from virtually any video on the internet. From here they can embed their quizzes into their classroom sites or redirect students to the ESL Video domain. Teachers tailor their video quizzes to specific learning units or create simple vocabulary quizzes like the one I made below using YouTube videos. While this tool may not be as sophisticated as some of the above services, its merit comes from the fact that teachers can incorporate pop culture products into their lesson plans with very little effort. Judging by the fact that the below Miley Cyrus video has more than 92 million YouTube views, teachers may be able to harness this tool to ignite a love of learning.

Let's be honest here, you're the educators! If you've got your own favorite resources, add them in the comments below.

In addition to Wales, other CK-12 advisory board members include CEO of Sun Microsystems Vinod Khosla, CTO of JotSpot Graham Spencer and founding principal of the High Tech High charter school program, Larry Rosenstock.

CK-12 intends to make use of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. Meanwhile, Wales' other open textbook project, Wikibooks, is licensed as GNU Free Documentation. Both licenses ensure that the book content is free to be copied, redistributed and modified for either commercial or non-commercial use with the only major stipulation being that author's receive attribution. Wikibooks currently has over 38,602 volunteer edited pages with subject matter in natural sciences, computing, humanities and social sciences. The project already includes books from at least 15 different languages.

According to CK-12, the difference between Wikipedia and CK-12 is that the organization "specifically focuses on K-12 standards-based content centered around the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects vs. serving as an encyclopedia of knowledge...CK-12 offers materials such as lesson objectives, vocabulary, and Q & A - similar to those found in textbooks." However, the group does not address comparisons with Wikibooks. At this early stage with CK-12, the key difference between Wikibooks and CK-12 appears to be that the latter organization envisions one day supplying printed textbooks via an on-demand press similar to Lulu or Blurb.

It is important to note that the researchers only surveyed users at Cambridge University and the Open University, so these results are somewhat skewed and only apply to the U.K., where text messaging is even more prevalent than in the United States.

The report, however, also found that users of more advanced phones like the iPhone are far more inclined to read eBooks on their phones than users of feature phones (no surprise there, given the difference in screen estate and quality). In the end, though, the report argues that it is currently "not worth libraries putting development resource into delivering content such as eBooks and e-journals to mobile devices at present."

Too Conservative?

While these recommendations seem reasonable based on the survey data, we agree with Lorcan Dempsey, a library blogger and Vice President of OCLC, who argues that with the advent of better eReaders and the iPhone, these survey results will probably look very different in just a few years from now.

As Sarah Bartlett from the Panlibus blog points out, the recommendations in this report are anchored in the past (getting SMS alerts about due books, for example), while now would be a good time to "re-imagine the library and its services."

While some libraries are often conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies, we would think that starting to adopt some of these technologies like eBooks and better mobile services now would help these institutions to remain relevant in a future where those large buildings in the middle of campus are already turning more into places for study groups to meet up and grab a cup of coffee than centers of academic research.

CC-licensed image used courtesy of Flickr user umjanedoan.

Rankin uses a weekly hashtag to organize comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class. Some of the students have downloaded Tweetdeck to their computers, others post by SMS or by writing questions on a piece of paper. Rankin then projects a giant image of live Tweets in the front of the class for discussion and suggests that students refer back to the messages later when studying. The Professor's results so far have been mixed but it is clear that more students are participating in classroom discussions than they used to. A video about Rankin's classroom experiment follows.

It's funny to hear this history professor admit that "there are some topics we discuss that need more information" than Twitter's 140 character limit allows. Some! Said like a true Twitter convert. It's also nice to hear a teacher talk about technology and say, "it's going to be messy but that doesn't mean bad." Welcome to the social web, where that's a great attitude.

Rankin wrote a few pages of thoughts about "The Twitter Experiment" on her school web page as well. "Most educators would agree that large classes set in the auditorium-style classrooms limit teaching options to lecture, lecture, and more lecture," she wrote. "And most educators would also agree that this is not the most effective way to teach. I wanted to find a way to incorporate more student-centered learning techniques and involve the students more fully into the material."

Rankin's experiment is similar to another effort at Pennsylvania State University at University Park, written up this Spring in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Another related example is available from Marquette University. Education consultant Jane Heart maintains a directory of more than 1000 learning professionals on Twitter.

Twitter truly is a paradigm shaking technology platform, but Rankin's use of it at the University of Texas also illustrates some of its shortcomings. Most importantly, Twitter search and archiving are notoriously short-lived. The service was really intended for fleeting tweets about casual activities, and it seems to have been architected that way. Short lines of poetry, ruminating about the history of the world, penned by young scholars standing in the doorway to the rest of their intellectual lives? Not so much. These students will be lucky if they can retrieve their earliest Tweets at the end of the term.

Asking students to discuss their classes in a very public forum has got to raise concerns for some people as well. Rankin says participation isn't required, but it's because of these kinds of concerns that private, education focused services like EdModo have a market. That closed communication comes at the expense of public knowledge sharing, but classroom innovators may not be able to have it both ways in the long term.

The tide certainly seems to be turning though, in favor of education augmented by these kinds of technologies. A March draft proposal for UK primary school education guidelines, for example, includes nationwide instruction in the use of tools like Wikipedia and Twitter.

For many other ideas about how to use Twitter in the classroom, check out this presentation deck on the topic.

You can find ReadWriteWeb on Twitter, as well as the entire RWW Team: Marshall Kirkpatrick, Bernard Lunn, Alex Iskold, Sarah Perez, Frederic Lardinois, Sean Ammirati, Doug Coleman Dana Oshiro, Steven Walling and Lidija Davis.

This is a great idea and we expect that young people who discover it will appreciate it. At first glance it looks better to us than iTunes University. This could genuinely help young people make more informed decisions about what schools to apply to. There's also a lot of great content on the site for anyone to learn from.

Last year we asked "Is YouTube the Next Google?," noting that video search is one of the most compelling types of search online. There is video content online, and on YouTube in particular, about just about anything. College content? That's a no brainer.

If you like academic videos, make sure to check out Academic Earth as well.

Universities such as Duke, Stanford, MIT, and the University of California, among others, already post videos online both to YouTube and in iTunes U, a section of iTunes featuring audio and video podcasts. However, what UNSW is doing is unique - they're providing college credit to those watching the YouTube recordings.

YouTube U

While there's really little difference between physically showing up in a classroom to sit and listen to a lecture and viewing a video of the same lecture, few universities have allowed this type of unstructured remote learning to count as college credit for those who are not already enrolled in the university. Instead, colleges that support distance learning initiatives usually require students to apply for admission and pay tuition, just as any other student attending classes on campus would have to.

The fact that Buckland is not charging the high school students who are remotely attending his courses but is still giving them college credit is what makes what he's doing so different...and perhaps groundbreaking.

The process of UNSW's "YouTube education" is not entirely without structure, though. Only a limited number of high school students are chosen each year for this opportunity. Those who wish to attend must submit a statement as well as an academic reference from a teacher. In other words, receiving college credit for watching the videos isn't something available to anyone, anywhere - there is still a selection process that is adhered to.

Higher Learning or Marketing Campaign?

Colleges who want to follow in UNSW's footsteps could easily take this idea and turn it into a recruiting or marketing campaign for their university. By offering high school students transferable college credits valid at their particular institution, they could encourage the brightest young students to consider their university over others long before it came time to fill out the admissions packet.

No matter what reason a college may have for pursuing this type of remote learning, giving students the chance to work ahead - and at no additional expense to them - is an idea that hopefully spreads to other institutions worldwide.

Half the students (32 of 64) skipped the class and listened to the podcast only. The other half attended in person, where they also received a printed handout. A week later, the students were tested on the material.

Podcast Listeners Did Better

The students who downloaded the podcast alone averaged a C (71 out of 100) but those who attended class averaged a D. And those who listened to the podcast and took notes did even better - their average was 77.

Before university classrooms empty out, it's important to note that this is only preliminary research. McKinney's study involved only a single lecture. Also, motivation may have come into play as well. Her experiment didn't count for class credit, so students were encouraged to participate with iTunes gift cards. The high scorer from each group was awarded a $15 gift certificate for use in the online store.

McKinney now plans to further study podcasts in the classroom over the course of an entire semester, instead of just one class. She wonders if students might find podcasts more useful early on in a class, when the material is still new. Still, McKinney is a big believer in the power of technology and its impact on education. "I do think it's a tool," she says. "I think that these kids are programmed differently than kids 20 years ago."

Today, Microsoft announced a lineup of educational content creators that are already building products with Semblio. These partners include Cambridge University Press, Educational Testing Services, and Wolfram Research, the developers of the Mathematica.

It is important to note that Semblio, in its current state, is not geared towards educators themselves. Microsoft explicitly states that is is targeting educational organizations that employ professional developers and designers, though it is also targeting independent developers that can integrate Semblio's reporting and tracking features with existing learning management system. This will change, however, when Microsoft releases the Semblio tools for teachers with Microsoft Office, which is slated for a release by the end of 2009 or in early 2010.

Fulfilling the Promise of Electronic Textbooks

In their current state, electronic textbooks are often relatively static versions of their physical counterpart, with maybe a few videos thrown in for good measure. As these electronic textbooks are slowly making a push into the textbook market, tools like Semblio should allow publishers and teachers to create interactive textbooks that actually fulfill the promise of the medium instead of just recreating the traditional textbook experience in the digital world.

Semblio is geared towards the desktop, though, and a lot of publishers are moving towards publishing their content online (where the used book market can't eat into their margins). It will be interesting to see if Microsoft will also release an online component to Semblio in the future.

Traffic wise, the well constructed site appears to be an early and unqualified success. It's also a lot of fun to read. The people behind the long established but widely reviled paid Q&A site Experts Exchange must be struggling to control bodily functions.

Spolsky says, not entirely in jest, that the traffic numbers are likely inflated by a disproportionate number of programmers with their browsers set to reject cookies - but the numbers are awesome for such a young website none the less.

What's Next?

The IT spin-off site is as yet unnamed and conversations are still ongoing about what level of technical sophistication the target audience will have. The core product of Stack Overflow is incredibly well thought out and a pleasure to use, as we detailed in our original review of the site when it launched. The prospect of this same approach applied to a non-programming technical help site is appealing.

Usability, clear market need, search engine friendly content and famous founders all combined to bring the site traffic that anyone would be envious of right out of the gate. Earlier this month the tiny new company made its first hire and we can't help but think with this kind of traffic there's money on the table that could be used to expand further at any time.

Stack Overflow may or may not grow into a major technical publishing endeavor, but its founders already have reason to be very proud of its success so far. We wish them continued success and we look forward to seeing what they do next.

President-elect Obama has always made technology in the classroom a central focus when discussing education policy, and there is clearly a pressing need for bringing more technology to the classroom to train students for a job market where these skills are now mandatory. It should be noted, though, that technology is often the least pressing of all the problems faced by some of these disadvantaged schools.

CC-licensed image used courtesy of Flickr user Extra Ketchup.

LeFever is the founder of Common Craft and his story is an inspiring one.

Editor's note: Looking back over 2008, there were some posts on ReadWriteWeb that did not get the attention we felt they deserved - whether because of timing, competing news stories, etc. So in this end-of-year series, called Redux, we're resurrecting some of those hidden gems. This is one of them, we hope you enjoy (re)reading it!

The History of Common Craft

Common Craft started out as a consultancy focused on creating and teaching organizations about online communities. Lee LeFever left his day job and opened up shop in 2003. He blogged prolifically and worked with a number of large clients in the earliest days of social media.

One of his most notable projects was working with consultant Nancy White on the very successful community Share Your Story, a March of Dimes site where parents with children in the neonatal ICU could find support. Share Your Story is still one of the most successful use cases of niche social networking online.

By 2007 the LeFevers began trying something that many social media consultants and trainers try - they began making videos explaining certain tools and trends emerging online. They tried using white boards and other methods but nothing really stood out - until Sachi LeFever thought to put the white board on the ground, cut out some simple cartoon figures and use a stop motion method of animation.

The Common Craft Show was thus born. April 2007 saw the company's first video in their now famous style, called RSS in Plain English. Though Common Craft's production skills have improved dramatically as they've produced video after video - RSS in Plain English remains the best introduction to RSS on the web.

One month later, Common Craft published a video called Wikis in Plain English.

Two months after this five year old consultancy began producing the simple introductory videos, the LeFevers decided they wanted to dedicate 100% of their time to the series and they stopped doing online community consulting.

Over the next year, Common Craft produced videos for clients, for general interest and for fun on a wide variety of topics. From California School Financing, to the company PR Web, to Zombies in Plain English (not to be confused with the PR Web client video) - the breadth was really impressive.

Hold the Show!

The Common Craft show was a huge success. Inquiries from clients were coming fast and furious, the company saw between five and ten inquiries for custom videos every day. Why have Lee and Sachi decided to stop making custom videos then? We asked them and this is what they told us.

"This was a perfect fit for us - we could work from home, make a good living and work on fun projects with interesting companies and people. And it's been a blast. But soon we started to look at the possibilities. A few things were clear:

1. Custom videos do not scale. We would have to hire people to grow the company and we don't want to hire. We are a two person company.


2. Custom videos are usually promotional. We are more comfortable with education than promotion. Another realization is that promotion is fad-driven and education isn't as much. We see a longer lifespan for our videos in education.


3. Our goal is independence - we want to work for our own goals on our own schedule and maintain a lifestyle that supports us."

What Now?

What is Common Craft going to do instead of making themselves available for hire making custom videos? Lee says that for the past year they've been getting requests three or four times a week for permission to re-use their Plain English videos. The solution they decided on was licensing them for corporate and eductional use.

Common Craft now sells licenses for high-quality, downloadable versions of their explanatory videos. All of their time working is now spent building out the library. Videos are licensed for under $20 for individual use and $350 for site-wide use, like on a company intranet. Commercial licensing, for use on public commercial websites, is the next option the company will be offering.

Of course the video content is available free to anyone online, but Common Craft says that many companies feel far more comfortable paying for official permission to use high quality, unbranded versions. There's certainly no DRM involved. "People want to do the right thing if they know the rules," Lee LeFever says. "Our challenge is to educate people about how we expect our videos to be used. We're lucky to have fans that feel good about supporting us with their purchases. Given limited resources, we would rather spend time educating people on the right thing to do than trying to make the wrong things impossible."

Fortunately, all the social media work the company has done has put them in a place of great prominence regarding the issues they tackle. People love their videos, so they get a lot of links and have excellent search engine ranking.

When the Common Craft Store opened in April, the first video sold within two hours. Last month, video licenses were bought by individuals and organizations in nine countries around the world. The LeFevers report that their customers include Fortune 500 tech, chemical and services companies, school districts and Universities, government agencies, individual consultants and educators.

The store isn't operating in the black yet, but it is covering their business expenses and "a nice chunk of our living expenses." We hope Common Craft can go all the way and support themselves fully with this work. An ad-free business model, developed by two independent creatives, is very inspiring.

Though the videos seem simple, each one takes days to prepare. The hardest part of making them, Lee LeFever says, is really nailing down clear, effective explanations of these concepts. It's a powerful skill set that Lee and Sachi bring to an interesting new market.

We love the fact that there are enough people willing to pay for this kind of content that Common Craft has decided to make it their sole business strategy. We've written here about the most awesome freelance producers of custom screen casts we know but when the LeFevers told us they'd left those ranks we were very curious to hear the details about what they are doing next.

We think their story can inspire anyone who dreams of making a living doing good work and exploring new ways to do business on a changing Internet.