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Read Play Help

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The Idea:

What will change in the world because this Project happens?

For teachers who want to encourage their students to research and read online, ReadPlayHelp will be a website where students can have a new kind of e-learning experience. Instead of just reading an article, at ReadPlayHelp, students will Read a teacher-assigned web resource or one they find on their own, Play computer-generated games to demonstrate comprehension of the reading, and Help others because for each question answered correctly, money will be donated for Internet connectivity in developing countries.

Unlike other free e-learning games, ReadPlayHelp will let teachers automatically generate games such as crossword puzzles for any content and at any educational level, making it an ideal learning activity for dynamic subject matter such as current events. Further, ReadPlayHelp will track student activity and send reports to the teacher for automatic import into grade book software.

Students and the general public will be motivated to stay on the site because there will be a variety of activities and real-time counters showing how many articles have been displayed, how many questions have been answered correctly, and how much Internet connectivity has been donated.

As ReadPlayHelp builds a following, it can grow in many directions. Teachers could easily create and share more sophisticated learning activities. Further, ReadPlayHelp could become a space for students to discuss the content being read.

Anyone in civil society could also use ReadPlayHelp as a channel to promote their informative content by having a link on their site saying, "Don't just read this article, ReadPlayHelp it." The ReadPlayHelp engine could be adapted to other many platforms.

Further, the general public would find the site appealing because of the fun, educational nature of the games and because of the click-to-give value proposition that the longer they stay on the site, the more social benefit they are giving to others.

Another avenue for growth is localization. Wikipedia currently lists 76 languages with 10,000 or more articles. Simply localizing ReadPlayHelp would let teachers produce an infinity of online learning activities.

With the right kind of nurturing, a community will form around ReadPlayHelp and ReadPlayHelp will evolve in response to the community's needs.

What information will people interact with to make this change?

ReadPlayHelp has the potential to add value to any text document already available online (e.g., news sites, blogs, encyclopedias, reference sites.) Attribution to the data source will always be provided and include a link to the original source. The interaction with the data will depend on licensing:

For open content, including wikipedia, U.S. government publications, many RSS feeds, and other content licensed as open by Creative Content, ReadPlayHelp will be able to fully embed the text in the Read window and fully parse and reuse the text to create the games.
For protected content, such as most news sites and other commercial sites, the ReadPlayHelp activity will make fair use of the protected content. For example, the first paragraph of the article could be quoted and a link would be provided so that the reader could open the article in another browser window.

What else have you done in this Cause Area?

I have dedicated my whole professional life to education and technology, currently offering consulting services in technology, education, international development, and NGO/NPO management.

I lived for a number of years in Guatemala and founded Ajb'atz' Enlace Quiché, a non-profit organization that helps indigenous peoples reach their full potential through innovative applications of information and communications technologies. Ajb'atz' Enlace Quiché has received awards from the San Jose Tech Museum and the United Nations.

Cause Area:
- Education
- Public & Social Benefit
Cause Area Tags:
Project URL:
http://readplayhelp.com
Financial support?:
No
City:
San Francisco
State/Region:
CA
Country:
United States

The Assessment

What kind of help or resources do you need to turn your project idea into a completed mashup?

I am simultaneously writing a full business plan and starting to build a prototype. At the moment, my most urgent needs are:

1. Technical help in building the prototype.

2. Marketing help in designing a viral marketing strategy to promote the site.

3. Monetization help to design a strategy to get advertisers, sponsors, subscribers (or ???) to fund the costs of maintaining and evolving the site as well as the funds that will be donated to provide Internet access in developing countries.

4. Legal help to achieve maximum fair use of copyrighted content.

5. Graphic design help to create the visual image of the site.