Monday, April 15, 2013 at 5:38AM Tweet
Special Thanks to author
for this very generous article.
(copy of original article, published by International Living, April 2013, p. 30)
Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 11:31AM Tweet 
Under its new imprint, Time Traveler Tales, the 1st interactive book published by Time Traveler Tours will hit iBookstores worldwide on 6 February 2013. Simultaneously, our resident tech guru has just launched his own Mac App, a handy tool for syncing your recently opened files with the cloud called Quicksand.
To mark this auspicious double occasion, we felt it the perfect time to introduce TTT Tech Guru, Sebastian Hallum Clarke: the young man behind all things tech at Time Traveler Tours and Tales.
Hi Sebastian! Why don't you start by telling us a bit about yourself.
Sure! My name is Sebastian Hallum Clarke, I’m 15 years old, and I live in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. I’ve always had a strong interest in technology, and it’s been great to put this in practice though my work with Time Traveler Tours. I’ve moved around a lot, having lived in New York, London, and most recently Paris, where I met Sarah. I love traveling. I speak English, French and a small amount of Spanish. I joined the TTT team in May 2012.
Tell us about the projects you've worked on during your time with Time Traveler Tours?
When I started at TTT, my first big project was revamping the company’s social media pages. Facebook had just introduced their new timeline design, so I worked with Sarah to reorganise the content, and to help position TTT’s social media strategy to better engage with users.
(In fact, we're putting together a Facebook launch right now to promote the interactive book. The fun starts on Sunday, 3 Feb, with a Book Giveaway and continues on Wednesday -- release day -- with an FB event. Head on over there now and like our page to be eligible for a free giveaway of the book.)
My next, still ongoing project was working on helping prepare the TTT for its next big step in mobile app offerings. I can’t say much about this at the moment, but I can tell you that it involved a lot of wireframes, and when it’s released, it will completely revolutionise the way you think about visiting historical locations.
Most recently, I’ve been working on our new interactive iPad book, Beware Madame La Guillotine, the new, book version of Time Traveler Tours’ critically acclaimed iOS app.
What prompted development of an interactive book?
We knew that our iOS app was a fantastic way for people visiting Paris to learn about the frightening time in history that was the French Revolution, but we also knew that there were many people all around the world who can’t make it to Paris who would still like to learn about Charlotte’s adventures.
In early 2012, when Apple announced that a new format of interactive books for the iPad would debut in its iBookstore, we instantly knew that it would be a fantastic way for people all over the world to immerse themselves in the captivating story of Beware Madame La Guillotine. We saw that through the exciting usage of interactive media, like audio-visual content and games, we could bring the magic of the city of lights to history students and armchair travelers at home.
What was your role in the production of the interactive book?
My main job was dealing with the technical end of the publication. Every week, Sarah would send me a couple of chapters which she had adapted from the iOS app. I would then go into iBooks Author, Apple’s tool for creating interactive books, and paste the text into the book. I’d drop in the images connected to that chapter, and then add in the interactive content that Sarah had written to go along with the story. Then it would be back to Sarah to sort out the layout for each page, and make sure that all of the design elements were correctly presented.
How did you find the experience of creating a book destined for the iBookstore?
Getting a grip on how the whole iBooks publishing system works certainly took a while. It’s immensely powerful, but not for the faint of heart. We had several hiccups along the way, but that’ll be for another blog post!
Thanks Sebastian!
Indeed, stay tuned for more about this remarkable technical wizard who the TTT could not currently do without. There's much more to learn about this fascinating young man. Don't for get to check out his website.
Now, go forth and like the TTT so you can be eligible to win a free copy of the interactive book!
Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 10:18AM Tweet
On February 6, 2013, Time Traveler Tours brings to the iBookstore the same award-winning concept it pioneered in the App Store – history through story and games – under the imprint Time Traveler Tales.
A mash up of the American Girl series (but global) and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (but focused on history), Time Traveler Tales interactive books reveal the past through creative non-fiction storytelling and interactive games.
As with their mobile iTineraries, each story in the coming Time Traveler Tales collection is a 1st person account of history by a figure whose actions helped shape that time. Tales are rooted in historical fact and illustrated with full-color period artwork. They are peppered throughout with interactive images and maps, multiple-choice questions, and puzzles that extend and enhance reader understanding of the narrators’ place and époque.
Targeted to youth, ages 12 and up, Time Traveler Tales are perfect companions for history, social studies, and humanities classrooms the world over.
They also make great reading for history buffs and armchair travelers.
The first interactive book in the collection, Beware Madame La Guillotine, is a trip back in time to the French Revolution, narrated by 24-year-old school-girl-turned-murderess, Charlotte Corday. While in prison and awaiting execution by guillotine, Charlotte recounts her personal journey through Paris at the time of the French Revolution. Explaining how and why she stabbed radical propagandist Jean-Paul Marat, she leads the reader from the Palais Royal, where she bought her murder weapon, to her prison, the Conciergerie, the Revolution’s antechamber to the guillotine.
As Charlotte weaves her yarn, she demystifies in a way that is captivating, yet comprehensible, the complex, cataclysmic, paradigmatic social shift set off by the French Revolution that rocked not only her nation, but eventually the world. She leaves readers wondering if violence is ever justified.
Time Traveler Tours & Tales Founder and Creative Director, Sarah Towle, is a career educator, writer, and inveterate traveler who moved to Paris in 2004. Frustrated by a lack of engaging cultural opportunities for youth, she began writing story-based historical itineraries for her then-preteen daughter. She knew she’d found the perfect delivery mechanism for these Tours when she held an iPhone in her hand for the first time.
Time Traveler Tours first app, also recounting Charlotte's story, was a School Library Journal Top 10 2011 App, a Teachers With Apps Top 10 2011 Tried & True Classroom App, and a Top 10 2012 Educational Travel App by the World Youth & Student Educational Travel Confederation.
The unveiling of Apple’s iBooks Author in 2012 opened yet a new door for Sarah and the Time Traveler Tours concept, enabling her to republish her Tours as Tales for the benefit of students and educators.
Combining the traditional power of narrative with the latest in technology, Time Traveler Tours & Tales put the past in the palm of your hand and allow you to discover history with those who made it.
Beware Madame La Guillotine: The French Revolution with Charlotte Corday will be available in iBookstores worldwide from February 6, 2013, for the introductory price of USD 4.99.
To request an advance copy for review, and/or schedule an interview, please contact Sarah Towle: stowle@timetravelertours.com.
Saturday, August 25, 2012 at 6:06PM Tweet 
That's right, you heard it here first.
But head on over to Julie Hedlund's blog to learn how to play.
Don't delay! Only 7 more days left!
Have Fun!
Post a Comment | Share Article | Email Article | Print Article | tagged Beware Madame La Guillotine, Sarah Towle, Time Traveler Tours | in TTT News | Permalink Tuesday, July 17, 2012 at 7:09AM Tweet
Imprisoned !
The first to leave was Wiggles. Poor thing. He was also the last to arrive.
As a condition of our move, explained here, I negotiated special handling for our scrappy and beloved feline friend. He might have been a big shot as he wandered the network of backyards that linked our Brooklyn block, hissing at other cats and torturing the local rodent underground. But put him in a car or cat caddy and he would be reduced to a howling, scaredy-cat, poised to escape at the slightest opportunity and quite willing to rip your face off to do so. Indeed, he worked on his claws for several meticulous hours each day, honing them to razor-like sharpness on the trees and fencerows of his proprietary Brooklyn playground for just an event. You always knew when Wigs had made a trip to the vet from the rows of angry scratch marks that striped my cheeks and shoulders.
If Jim’s company wanted him in Paris that badly, they would have to hire a profession pet courier for Wigs. C’est tout. Let him scratch someone else bloody.
So the company agreed, despite the unnatural expense. And thus began our first blush with French bureaucracy.
Mon dieu!
Because, as it happens, the French will approve nothing without a complete dossier, often in triplicate, and the overpriced idiot pet transporter, who was paid to get Wiggles from Park Slope to Paris in under 12 hours, lost the papers en route. He’d taped to the pet carrier one full copy of the dossier, which detailed all the tests and jabs and chips that Wiggles had received in keeping with French national requirements, and they’d come detached and gone very much missing. And they were the originals!
Mon dieu! The French men in suits informed us. Duplicates just will not do!
So Wigs was not allowed out of Charles de Gaule airport. He was imprisoned…for a full week!
Because that’s how long it took the French authorities to review the newly-minted and 24-hr FedExed documents, signed and sent aux urgence by the pet transport company upon Wigs’ arrival. That’s how long it took them to deem Wigs fit to commune with his French confrères.
Imagine having had the run of Brooklyn parks and gardens and then tout à coup having to live cooped up in a cat caddy for a whole miserable week. In an airport, no less, unable to understand anything being said by the people who hold your freedom in their hands.
Poor Wigs!
Next, it would be my turn.
Please COMMENT and/or SHARE IT with your
Followers & Friends
* * *
Image by Chachacha369, coutesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Post a Comment | Share Article | Email Article | Print Article | tagged Sarah Towle, Time Traveler Tours | in Sarah's Story, TTT Tales | Permalink Monday, July 2, 2012 at 4:19PM Tweet 
I just celebrated a milestone birthday. Which one isn’t important. I’ll let your imagination fill in that blank. Let’s just say it was sufficiently significant to cause me to stare in the mirror and ask, Well, how did I get here?
I never set out to be a professional writer. I never envisioned myself developing story-based apps. (Hell, there were no such things as apps when I was starting out in the world. There wasn’t even an Internet!) And I definitely never imagined in a million years that I would be founding my own business one day.
Truth be told, if I were a kid right now I’d probably be diagnosed ADHD with a touch of OCD thrown in. I was never particularly focused on any one thing for very long. I was instead drawn to the connections between things. As a student, I was here and there, exploring how this linked to that and how that influenced the other. As an adult, I moved seamlessly, to my mind anyway, from producing performing events to working as a linguist and language educator; from teaching English all points abroad to facilitating large groups in conflict due to intercultural misunderstanding; to modeling the teaching of conflict resolution skills to primary school teachers through great works of children’s literature.
It all made sense to me. But over the years some have accused me of being scattered, others dilettantish, still others visionary. My own daughter tells me on a regular basis, “Mom, you’re all over the place.” And while that may sometimes be true, she also knows that when I get sucked into something I feel truly passionate about, I get sucked in 100% for as long as it takes. There’s just no pulling me out.
With Time Traveler Tours, I have finally – after more years than I would like to admit – found a way to wed my many interests and passions: history, story, language, education, culture, travel, technology and fun.
More accurately, I have discovered a way to present the connections I see between things in a nicely wrapped package for others' enjoyment.
This is the story of how Time Traveler Tours came to be.
It is also the story of a multi-passionate entrepreneur: Me.
What are you multi-passionate about? Leave your comments below!
Happy Birthday Image, by Hendrike 16:12, 21 December 2007, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Post a Comment | Share Article | Email Article | Print Article | tagged Time Traveler Tours | in Sarah Towle, Sarah's Story, TTT Tales | Permalink Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:21AM Tweet 
Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 7:09AM Tweet 
Time Traveler Tours, LLC
We are equally proud and honored to share this fantastic disctinction with the following standout storyapps,
as well as with such giants as
Thank you School Library Journal!
We hope you also like the bilingual version of Charlotte's app, soon to come!
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 5:38AM Tweet 
So every now and then Apple upgrades its operating system. This is a good thing, right? Right!
But it can wreak havoc on apps and programs that were built prior to the new system release. And that’s just what happened with Beware Madame la Guillotine.
For this first-time developer, the event came as an unexpected shock, creating a de-stabilizing ripple effect throughout my organization from marketing plans to future development projects to current user experience. I had already alpha-tested and beta-tested my app to the point of operational perfection. I should be able to trust it to run as designed from now on, right?
No. Evidently not. (I must've been sleeping through that lesson back in app developer school.)
But fortunately my development team at SmartyShortz LLC was well aware of technology's fickle nature prior to our initiation of the Time Traveler Tours project. And thanks to them, we are SO on top of it. The disease has been identified and the appropriate medicine administered. The patient is on the mend and will be released from hospital soon.
So, the crisis now over, I'm happy to fill you in on all the gory details…
Four days after the release of iOS5, a lovely librarian in the heart of Massachusetts informed us that Charlotte’s app, while working just great on her personal iPad, would crash mysteriously on the six iPads available for student use whenever the “menu” button was engaged.
“What iOS are you running?” we asked. Her personal device had not yet been upgraded, but all the library devices were now running iOS5.
Now I had not yet updated my iPhone at the time I received the news, but my translation partner had. So we tested it on her phone. And sure enough, Beware Madame la Guillotine continued to run swimmingly on my device, but under iOS5 it would, indeed, crash with a mere touch of the “menu” button.
Fortunately, one of my contract agreements with SmartyShortz was take out an insurance policy in the form of a pre-paid “maintenance bucket”. I questioned this at first, way back when we were first negotiating the terms of our contract. What did it cover? Where was the line between “maintenance” and other updates? What would be taken care of by insurance and what would require further payment?
My guys were very patient with me as I agonized over this decision, but ultimately I was convinced that this seemingly abstract fee for unforeseen “repairs” would be of value to me one day. And it turns out already to have been money well spent. Because thanks to this maintenance bucket, my team at SmartyShortz put my app before all other projects – including our upcoming bilingual release – to update Beware Mme la Guillotine for iOS5.
It’s now fixed. But the AppVenture continues as the new-and-improved version of Charlotte's app now needs to be re-approved by Apple. Which means that it must join the by now very, very, very long queue of other apps that also had to be tweaked for Apple’s new operating system.
Cross your fingers that the journey to re-release will be short lived. And know that if you’re having any issues with the app when you press menu button, you’re not alone. Also know that relief is on the way!
P.S. I’d give it about a week.
Now time for me to get back to the tasks I was neck-deep in before all this excitement went down: mastering of the French audio and marketing. If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been visible in cyberspace this past week, you now know why. It’ll be nice to be back.
Image:
Clip Art courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 8:39AM Tweet 
Guide2Paris is a brand new, just launched online resource dedicated to the Anglophone community visiting Paris, living in Paris and thinking of living in Paris.
