Virtualology

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Virtualology.com is a website that hosts historical documents, art, natural history research and biographies. The site was created by Stan Klos. It hosts a copyrighted, edited version of Appletons Encyclopedia under its FamousAmericans.net website. [1] Virtualology created an online educational venue where students published their work on the appropriate world wide web sites.

Contents

[edit] History

The Virtualology Project, founded in 1999, designed its own search engine, Evisum.com [2] and coupled it with an online research model that included over 7,500 unique URL addresses of notable individuals (GaiusJuliusCaesar.com), events (BattleofYorktown.com), places (HimalayaMountains.com) and things (thedeclarationofindependence.org). In 1999, this enabled visitors to merely type the researched name into any browser, yielding a Virtualology educational site. These educational sites were organized into five virtual museums and one virtual library.

The distinctive twist was that each domain name became an exclusive student-publishing web site. Student submissions were presented through their teachers and routed directly to the individual sites either to the URLS' editing sponsors or to Virtualology Editors. Editing sponsors were comprised of educators from a variety of educational institutions including museums, libraries, foundations, universities, and historical societies who became responsible for their URL’s content.

Virtualology created an environment where students published their work on URLS named for the topic of their research. 13 months after Virtualology's launch USA Today voted it as one of its “Hot Sites”.[3] Klos wrote:

Instead of our children pointing to their initials on the top of some mall video game; they can give their family and friends the URL address to their published paper at gaiusjuliuscaesar.com or map sketch at ferdinandmagellan.com or photo at himalayamountains.com or model at tyrannosaurusrex.org or oil painting at michaelangelobuonarot.com celebrating their academic achievements. Great student works would no longer be limited to the refrigerator door!

Editing sponsors reviewed, selected student works and Virtualology posted the papers, photos, drawings, videos etc… to the appropriate domain URLS. The concept, however, faltered with the collapse of internet advertising revenue in 2001. Additionally students and teachers in 1999-2001 were not internet savvy and there was only a minor interest in the online student publishing opportunities.

[edit] Virtuaology Today

Virtualology was a Millennium dot.com survivor and continues with its mission to “foster an understanding of humanity's great moments, exceptional minds, remarkable talents, infamous actions, great events, natural history, scientific discoveries, and the celebration of individuals.” The Virtualology project, in addition to its founding content, placed Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, online at www.famousamericans.net in 2002 to compliment the historic domain names.

Many of the original domain names set aside for student publishing, were donated to[4] libraries [5] foundations, [6]universities, and historical societies [7] that participated in the early Virtualology student publishing. Several organizations have continued with the Virtualology student publishing model at their respective sites with some awarding college scholarships to winning entries [8]

The Virtualology Project has since relocated to Palm Harbor, Florida with Founder Stanley L. Klos and his eight children who help maintain the websites. They are currently beta testing Peter Force's American Archives [9] which will be added to the Virtuaology content in 2008.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Upper St. Clair archivist lends documents of Founding Fathers to library.", Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Wednesday, August 1, 2001. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. "Klos envisions the Internet as an adjunct to learning and hopes to work with teachers and students in surfing the Web in search of classroom assignments. He has a Web site called Virtualology.com and has created sites for famous world leaders." 
  2. ^ Evisum Educational Search Engine
  3. ^ USA Today Hot Sites, USATODAY.com 2001
  4. ^ The Sixth Floor Museum a Dealey Plaza, jackiekennedy.org Virtual Museum donation by Stanley L. Klos
  5. ^ Carnegie Institute and Library of Pittsburgh, andrewcarnegie.org Virtual Museum donation by Stanley L. Klos
  6. ^ James Monroe Memorial Foundation, jamesmonroe.org Virtual Museum donation by Stanley L. Klos
  7. ^ Anne Frank House, AnneFrank.org Virtual Museum donation by Stanley L. Klos
  8. ^ Monroe Scholarship Award, James Monroe: Guardian of a Free Hemisphere
  9. ^ Peter Force, ed. American Archives 9 vol 1837-1853
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