is about changing the way people teach and learn in very important ways. It examines the question universities and professors face of how to best use technology in schools and in teaching. It explores the possibilities and pitfalls of a revolutionary undertaking to develop a an open source educational software community and platform that includes educational software tools that use technology in clever and leveraged ways to enable teaching and learning in ways that simply haven’t been attempted before.

Out of this exploration, emerges a vision of and plan for a concrete pilot project to develop the first generation, the kernel, of what has the potential to become a real, revolutionary, robust, and flexible option for universities and opportunity for teachers.

 
  You maybe visiting this site as a potential donor of time or money, a person interested in education, or as someone intrigued by “active research”—building tools to test them even as the theory behind their use develops. Whatever your motivation, we hope that as you explore this site you feel drawn to join in the enterprise.
   
  What is ? In its most basic terms, is a suite of software tools to be used in a classroom, out-of-class, or distance learning setting in conjunction with traditional teaching methods. The unifying feature of the tools in the toolbox is that they facilitate interactivity--between students and students, students and professors, professors and professors, and even between different classes and schools. The tools are not complex, they simply leverage the inherent possibilities of the Internet to enable communication in teaching in ways that haven't previously been feasible.
   
  Why is ? There are two driving reasons for 's existence. First, as teachers and students, we have experimented with the use of proto- tools in our classrooms at Harvard Law school and found that they have significant potential to enhance both the teaching and learning experience. Second, part of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society's mission is to explore cyberspace and pioneer in its development. One of the main areas of our work has been the exploration of openness in code and in education. We see universities becoming increasingly beholden to commercial companies in their use of proprietary education software platforms. It is our hypothesis that, working from a technically and substantively strong and stable open source kernel, universiites can develop and maintain open source educational software that better meets each school's needs at lower cost than proprietary or single-university developed educational software. is the beginning of this experiment: the building of the kernel.
   
 

But really, what is ? This website is dedicated to explaining the different aspects of : our philosophy, our coding methodology, the specific tools we are building, and the community for which we are building them. On the code page you will find 1) our coding philosophy: the reasons for our commitment to open code, and 2) our coding methodology: the structure we have chosen for development of the kernel. The content page is the center of the site, with descriptions of the tools themselves, how they work, what they are used for, and how they interrelate and foster interactivity. On the community page is the description of how we hope our audience--hopefully soon to be our partners in development--will use and benefit from .

Enjoy exploring the site and if you have any questions regarding our project or additional information you think would be helpful on this site, please email us and let us know.