If you’ve ever been to a really big museum, you’d know those audio tours aren’t always as contemporary as our tech savvy minds are accustom to. And like those museums, the Wikipedia town is adopting that very same technique, except using advanced technology able to be detected by smartphones to promote an interactive learning experience in the Wikipedia town of Monmouthpedia.
You might be thinking, Wikipedia town? What does that even mean? The town is about 1/25 the size of Wales, and is located in the Welsh area of Monmouth. The goal of the Monmouthpedia project was to build a comprehensive database of articles to create a virtual tour using QR codes.
Back in January the organization behind the project said “The amount, detail, and quality of the information that the community could create is staggering [.] [...] Monmouth may well be first place in the world to offer its tourist information in over 250 languages.”
In and around the town one will find over 1,000 QR codes—on metal plaques, on building relics—all put up with permission by the council. Some of the notable locations include The Methodist Church and the Savoy Theatre.
The Wikipedia town is only a chunk of how Wikipedia is becoming embedded into daily life. Last year at the Wikimania conference in Haifa, Israel, there was talks of developing Wikipedia software to 3rd world countries for the knowledge that “isn’t always Googleable.”
If the Monmouthpedia project sounds like something you want to participate in, locals are being invited to suggest and write content, donate photographs, and recommend good reference materials.
(via The Verge; photo via Computer Active)
