Public Learning Media Laboratory

Greetings, friends!

Several months ago, during a PLML meeting, we hit upon the challenge that there was no technology to help small nonprofit organizations (like PLML) harness the power of volunteer technologists. Sure, there were volunteering technologies (like idealist.org), but nothing that accommodated nonprofits, distance technology volunteers and the kinds of relationships that would make this match-making successful.

So what did we do? True to form, we plopped ourselves down, drew up some sketches, developed CodeKindness, and have just - gasp! - released it!

Cheers, and stay tuned for CK updates (and the next technologies that we’re building),
–Dave

Greetings!

In addition to our news about CodeKindness, we’re also pleased to release Boolify 1.x, at http://www.boolify.org. Boolify’s interface has developed over the past few months, and we’re pleased really, really pleased at your enthusiastic response. A diverse range of educators (from around the world!) are using this tool.

Cheers, and stay tuned for future updates!

–Dave

The Boolify Project has received wide press recently and is all over the blogsphere. While we can’t keep up with all of the commentary, some postings bring up great questions. Today’s post on Western School Board Technology is no exception.

Just be aware, the site is in beta release. It is currently free to try. I couldn’t find anywhere on the site where it indicated that it would be a fee based service in the future…but these things can happen. At the very least check it out.

The answer? Yes! Boolify is and always will be free, as will the other technologies we develop and deploy. Of course, if the tool is useful, we appreciate that you support the project, and the development costs of future projects, through a reasonable donation. But at no point will we charge for technologies. Why?

You see, the term digital divide doesn’t necessarily imply only those people who can’t afford the hardware and internet access. Cheap hardware and almost-free access is commonplace, although not ubiquitous. Another digital divide is between those individuals, teachers, schools and districts that can afford the cutting edge educational technologies, and those that can’t. It’s this divide that we’re aiming to help alleviate.

Note: others talk of a knowledge divide. Evidence for a knowledge divide is based not on IF individuals can access various technologies, but how individuals use them for various ends.

Greetings!

Please excuse the changes while we update the site to integrate a Wordpress blog. We thought it was time to get bloggin’, to communicate more easily with everyone, etc etc. In the meantime, you can still contact us with questions. Thanks!