To boldly explore and create new interactive web solutions for companies & non-profits.
To have clients inspire us to craft attractive, entertaining, and genuinely useful work!
Apr 20: Launched revamp of Physician Health Program of BC!
Mar 31: Launched Les habitations sans fumée au Québec!
Mar 10: Launched Les habitations sans fumée en Ontario!
Feb 23: Launched Learning Point's new website!
Feb 22, 2011: Support Avazz.org's blackout-proof protest campaign
Sept 27, 2010: Launched www.bcsot.org!
Our current research and development projects include:
This open source project aims to provide students and others with the very same collage-style website tool that runs this website.
The collage metaphore enables people to create presentations and keep notes on class curriculum as the year(s) progress. The application can be run entirely via web browser. Students can save their work to a simply administered webserver, or, using the browser's own save capability, straight to the student's own USB or hard drive.
Web Collage explores information presentation as more of a map/cartography metaphore with some ability to represent mind maps.
This project examines the formal math function definition f = (domain, codomain, graph), and how it might be incorporated into a natural language parser.
Functional programming languages - Haskell, Prolog and others - don't really have a "natural language" way to talk about functions. I propose that a pure function language could cover all the logical aspects of f = (domain, codomain, graph), and also be able to do this in conjunction with the basic grammar and semantics of human language. The proposed language would be able to describe known and variable parts of a function (problem) in the moment or on a timeline. Constraint programming could then be applied to narrow possibilities or produce solutions.
Some apps and articles by Damion for your perusal!
Douglas wondered if we could implement a kind of lasso mouse move enabling users to select and center on any box on this site. This enables silent "click-less" navigation
We recently implemented an HTML document comparison service for a client that others might benefit from.
It takes in 2 documents and produces a document that highlights the differences.
If you have a taste for card games, Enigma machines, software development or gambling, you invariably get into math and logic to some degree. I've written up some of my explorations here.
Google SketchUp is a free 3D design program people are using to create models of buildings in their locale. My kid's school needed a model to envision landscape possibilities ...
Are you an amateur math aficionado lured in by the apparent simplicity of Pierre de Fermat's Last Theorem and his proof that was just a little too big for the page margin?!
If Wiles can hole up in his house for seven years, then I too can devote an occasional evening ...
Lets say the Fermat Ferment proof doesn't apply to n > 3.
Here's a prototype javascript Pretty Good Privacy form encrypt / decrypt test. There are a few potential uses for this - light browser based secure web to email scripts, or off-line portable account password retrieval.
Why can factoring a number be so difficult? Well, certain numbers called primes have no factors - no smaller numbers besides 1 that they cleanly divide into. But you can't tell this just by "looking" at them.
I occasionally try to tackle a math problem, and as failure is, er, possible, my fall-back position is to convert it into art of some kind. This one was inspired by the factorization problem.
We wish Le Roy was one of our project managers. In reality we have to manage projects the old-fashioned way - by clarifying the aims, processes and resources that yeild success, and by avoiding the pitfalls of insufficient scoping and planning.
Learningpoint works with the following products:
We integrated Drupal and the open source CiviCRM.org membership management software, along with custom php reporting components, to enable this organization to process membership fees, manage event attendance, job postings and advertising.
This large, recently completed project provides a sophisticated survey, data collection and reporting engine using the latest drag and drop user interface technology that can meet the ethical and technical requirements of academic and research consultancy clientele. It is built to handle heavy volume, data sharing, and sophisticated statistics!
This project, done for the Law Courts Education Society of British Columbia, developed BC's first knowledgebase regarding the complicated process of granting or denying bail to suspects. The end result of this browser-based application is a multi-page intelligent form that dynamically takes police and judicial system representatives through the process of assessing bail candidacy and conditions, culminating in a checklist of requirements.
For many years Hollyhock has used our content management system, Presto CMS, to manage their website, provide ride sharing information, display workshop schedules and details, and handle customer reservations. A specially designed workshop presenter intranet enables an entirely on-line process of uploading, editing, versioning, and publishing (in print and on the web) their course profiles.
Since the 90's, our CMS has handled this client's website, including a display of agents, services and unique mix of socially-minded business partners. As well we developed one of the first web-connected search engines of the Tennessee RETS property listings. Our system quickly searches hundreds of thousands of Nashville and environs listings in ways our competition can only dream of!
Representing the needs of non-smokers in many provinces, this association runs a variety of websites, in both French and English, using our multilingual Presto CMS. The Ontario website uses one of our latest, crystal clear designs! We've search engine optimized (SEO) this site so that it comes in #1 in Google for many key terms involving tobacco control and non-smoking resident advocacy. We understand and enjoy working with non-profits like the NSRA!
Ranking #1 in Google in many baseball training categories, this site combines a wealth of educational material with an e-commerce engine. Fans of baseball will appreciate its multimedia video and animation training presentations and expert articles. We also built the team site component that provides hundreds of team managers with an online website for team information - rosters, fan lists, schedules, and game stats management and reporting.
This very active social networking site for a film school's current and alumni students was our first application of the Social Engine software product, offering a place to share student profiles, video productions, and project work.
LearningPoint revamped the gallery portion of this website to make viewing and ordering Dennis's wonderful photography much easier. SEO primes each gallery to be well promoted!
Illustrating our commitment to non-profits over the long term, this website uses our Presto CMS to manage content as well as various donation forms.
Learning Point provides support for projects in the open-source php/LAMP domain, as well as for clients using Cold Fusion and Microsoft SQL Server.
Our design associates enjoy the challenge of producing visual splendour to match your organization's mission and history. Explore some of their commercial and non-profit examples below.
Damion Dooley
Principal, CTO
Douglas Grant
Associate, Project Manager
Use our email form, or ...
info@learningpoint.ca
604 877 0304
LearningPoint Inc.
387 East 17th Ave.
Vancouver, BC, Canada
V5V 1A9
As Learning Point's Technology Chief, I provide clients with solution advice and software implementations for their websites. My experience spans over two decades of building applications and website content management systems for corporate, government, and non-profit clients.
Much of my web work was carried out over a decade as Director of Application Development at Communicopia, where I led the technical development of hundreds of successful projects, large and small. Formative years in Silicon Valley and an Honours BA in Cognitive Science have enabled me to tackle a wide variety of creative challenges with gusto!
As a kid: inspired by Expo 67 in Montreal, a year in the construction site of the utopian Arcosanti, another living in the back of the historic Museum of Northern Arizona, a stint in Benjamin Franklin's home town, Philadelphia, along with a dose of American bioregional counterculture from San Francisco and Northern California (not to mention Star Trek, the Bionic Man, Buckminster Fuller, the Space Shuttle Program, ...) these were a blend of futuristic, historic, and preservationist visions. Into this milieu came the dawn of personal computers, the addictive promise of power to create worlds.
Teen geekhood: In an attempt to master both logic and silicon, software and hardware, I made a 3D rotational fly-over of wireframed England on an Apple II+ in assembly language; and a Byte magazine speech synthesizer project. Living with my dad in Berkeley, California, I worked for Hercules Computer Technology, the first maker of IBM PC clone graphics boards. I created screen saver/capture software that shipped with those products, and made Autocad-style visual integrated circuit design software, in assembly, for their kind chief engineer. On the side, did a robot with stepper motor controls, wired up a 300Baud modem, and wrote the software to connect it with a few Bay Area bulletin boards.
20ish: Realization: software - now the linchpin of digital creativity - was a time-sucking struggle to create and use. Software had no cohesive toolbelt for problem solving. Consequently I have an interest in systems at a more abstract symbolic level. Pattern recognition, logic and human problem solving. I undertook an honours degree in Cognitive Science to expand my knowledge in this realm. This degree was a great cross-disciplinary experience that has had a practical influence on my work.
Now: Creative solutions for LearningPoint clients are my focus. R & D takes up the remaining time!
Douglas Grant has worked as project manager, information architect, and strategic consultant since developing the BC Open Learning Agency's (www.ola.bc.ca) first Web-based course in 1994. Early industry experience also included his roles as User Interface/Usability and Documentation Team Leads for NCompass Resolution (www.ncompasslabs.com), which Microsoft acquired and which now forms the basis of its collaboration and document sharing content management system, Sharepoint.
Douglas earned an MASc (Interactive Arts) from Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology (www.siat.sfu.ca/grad/welcome/) in 2006 and has worked with Damion over the last decade. His recent work includes IA and wireframing, with Publicis Canada (www.publicis.ca), for The Heart & Stroke Foundation of BC & Yukon's Quittersunite.com (www.quittersunite.com) social networking community to support smoking cessation and strategic consultation for Pinc's (www.pincgiving.com) online video network providing an online platform for socially responsible fundraising initiatives.
