Reclaim Hosting is Live

appboxLast October Tim Owens and I were coming back from a presentation about Domain of One’s Own at a symposium on digital publication, research, and writing at Emory University when we realized the work we’re framing out for Domain of One’s Own might have broader applications well beyond UMW. Yesterday Reclaim Hosting went live, and it’s exactly what Tim and I were talking about on that train ride back to Fredericksburg ten months ago. Reclaim Hosting affords teachers, faculty, students, and institutions all over the world the ability to quickly setup a domain and web hosting account within the context of a larger educational community. In fact, I think Audrey Watter’s reference to Domain of One’s Own as one of the edtech start-ups of 2012 was somewhat prescient and generative, because she helped us see that the work we’re doing has a broader field of influence then we first realized.

I’m really excited by the idea that a community of educators and students can start collaborating the possibilities of  managing and experimenting with an open source toolbox. In many ways, the series I am working on with Howard Rheingold right now is a sign of some of the larger possibilities for doing open, distributed edtech. That said, this could not have been done without the help of a number of people in the community who stepped up and loaned us the money to cover the domain costs as we get started. The number of people that expressed interest in Reclaim Hosting was daunting, and we needed to be sure we could cover the demand.

In particular, Mike Caulfield loaned us the lion’s share of the money so far to cover the upfront costs of domains as we get started, without him we couldn’t open this as quickly as we have. But Mike was not alone in his faith in this project, we’ve raised over $12,000 thanks to Paul Bond,  Boone Gorges, Brian Lamb, Jeff McCLurkenMariana Funes, John Maxwell, Grant Potter, Jess Rigelhaupt, Jonathan Worth, and Christina Hendricks. You all rule! If this craziness works you get free hosting #4life 🙂 Also, if you are reading this and can spare to loan us a few bucks sometime over the next week or two we would be much obliged. Now, let’s get this learning party started!

 

This entry was posted in reclaimopen and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Reclaim Hosting is Live

  1. Pingback: UMW Domains a Win for Open | bavatuesdays

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.