Blog
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A long overdue update (including notes from a meeting with the Zambian High Commissioner)
Hello all,
Firstly, sorry for the ridiculous length of time since the last update. You’ll be glad to know that all is still going well at LearnAsOne and that updates will be considerably more frequent from now on!
So what’s been happening?
Well three main things:
1) Developing the website (which is about 85% complete).
2) Gearing up for the first visit to Africa to select the first school.
3) Some small scale fundraising.I’ll briefly bring you up to speed.
Developing the website
The website is being developed so that you can donate to a specific community in need of a school.
Every school will get their own web page featuring a fundraising target, a shopping list of what they need and a way for you to donate. Plus a blog to provide regular feedback (video, written, photos etc.) so you can see exactly how your money is being spent. You will also be able to leave questions for the kids, teachers and community members to answer. Think of it as a cross between Facebook and JustGiving.
The new site is still in development but is now about 85% complete. Key screenshots can be found here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/7370765@N05/sets/72157603655096088. All the web development is being done on a voluntary basis by two amazing individuals, Ian Pearce and Bill Glover. This has resulted in a significant cost saving, which means that more of your money can go towards the first school. But on the flip side it means it’s taking longer than we initially hoped to get the new site live.
I can however tell you that the new site is shaping up really well and will be worth the wait! It’s currently restricted to the developers and a few testers. But as the development gets closer to completion we will be looking for more testers to provide feedback before the full launch. Look out for more details on how to become a tester appearing on this blog in the near future.
Selecting the first school
The most interesting and important part of this update of course surrounds the first school, which will be in Zambia.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending just over an hour in the company of the Zambian High Commissioner, Mr. Anderson Chibwa. I was able to introduce LearnAsOne, show him the current prototype for the new site and discuss the opportunities to work in Zambia. He offered to make a number of calls on our behalf, put us directly in touch with potential partners (local NGOs who specialise in education) and make introductions to other individuals in the media and at the Ministry of Education.
The next step will be to follow up on these contacts, and set up an exploratory trip to meet these people and identify our first NGO partner. And from there select the first community to work, establish their educational needs, set up their web page on the new site and get into full scale fundraising for the first school.
The one word of caution was the upcoming rainy season (Dec-April) which can make travel difficult. We are still looking into options for visiting during this period as it looks like this is when the initial funding will be sufficient to justify the trip and the new website will be up and running.
Again, you will be kept posted as to how things develop.
And a brief fundraising update
Despite a period of inactivity on the site, small scale fundraising has been continuing.
Dugald Wilson decided run the Edinburgh marathon in aid of LearnAsOne and raised £344 in the process. The New Bucks University Student Union continued their fine work from early in the year and sent through a cheque for £528. And our trustee Iain Gray raised £595 in sponsorship by completing l’Etape - the hardest stage of the Tour de France. There have been a number general donations too.
I’d like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to everyone who has contributed their time and money over the past few months. It’s fantastic to see money coming in even before the first school project is up on the site.
Thanks everyone!
P.S. If you would like to take part in an event to raise money for LearnAsOne it’s simple to set-up a fundraising page. Just use this link and follow the simple instructions.
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New year. New screenshots.
Firstly, I’d like to wish you a Happy New Year from everybody at LearnAsOne. And also to apologise for the lack of posting over November and December.In our absence we’ve been busy planning the next stage of the website, which will allow you to ‘Fund your own school‘.
Adam Koehli has kindly volunteered his time to turn the wireframes for the site into fully fledged designs. They have been uploaded to the LearnAsOne Flickr page if you wish to take a look. All comments and suggestions for improvements are much appreciated. (Please note that only the design has been worked on at this stage and copy still needs to be written or corrected).
The basic structure is as follows:
- A new homepage, a MySchool search page and an example individual school page.
- 6 admin pages. These will let you manage your account and the schools you support. For example, checking up on your donation history or setting email notifications whenever your favourite school(s) post an update.
All feedback, both positive and negative, is welcomed.
P.S. The next stage is to make any improvements to these designs and then turn them into web code. If you are skilled in HTML, CSS, PHP or MYSQL and you want to help out please email me through the this link. Thanks.
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How cool would it be if you could fund your own school?
Well thanks to LearnAsOne you will soon be able to.
LearnAsOne is a new digital charity set up to fund schools and support their running cost throughout the developing world. Phase I of the website is already live: it’s based around this blog which lets you follow the fundraising progress towards the first school in Zambia, keep on top of all the latest news and interact with other members of the LearnAsOne community.
Phase II - MySchool
But the big idea behind LearnAsOne is to further develop the website to provide an extremely cost-effective way for you to give directly to an overseas community in need of a school. The way it works is very simple: every school will have its own webpage - or blog - that will look a bit like the line drawing below, right (click on the image to see it full size).
The page features the following:
- Two fundraising targets: One for the initial build costs and the other for ongoing support costs (such as books and teachers’ salaries). You will be able to donate to either of these or set up your own fundraising page for an event you are taking part in - more about that later.
- Regular feedback (including videos) direct from the school, so that you can see exactly what your money is helping to achieve.
- The opportunity to leave comments and questions for teachers and pupils to answer.
MyFundraising page
If you do decide to set up a fundraising page you will be able to link it directly to the school you are supporting. (Click on the image to see it full size)
Promote the school with a badge
You will also be able to add a badge or widget to your own website, blog or MySpace page to encourage others to give to your chosen school. (Again, click for the full image)Facebook application
A Facebook application is also in development so that you can add your favourite school or fundraising event to your profile and promote it through your feed.
The beauty of this idea
Once phase II is developed, it will provide everyone with internet access a new, interactive and fun way to support education in the developing world. And what’s really great is that it will cost us virtually the same amount to fundraise for one school as it will for 100! So it will be a highly scalable and a very cost effective way to donate to education in the developing world.
How can I help?
As you can see from the drawings a lot of the thinking has been done. But these drawings still need turning into a web application. To minimise costs we are looking for graphic designers and web developers (xhtml, css, php, MySql) who are interested in volunteering their skills to help develop this functionality. It doesn’t matter if you want to help out for the whole project or just help for a few hours, if you are interested, please get in touch with Steve by emailing [email protected].
Spread the word
If you like the idea of being able to partially fund your very own school then please, please let other people know about the idea too. Please take the time to digg this post, submit it to StumbleUpon, tag it on delicious, tell your friends, forward it to the press, email bloggers who you think may be interested or post this on Facebook.
And if you have any suggestions for improving the wireframes or turning them into reality, please add your ideas in the comments below. Thank you.
While this functionality is being built fundraising for the first school in Zambia will continue, and updates will be provided on this blog. You can subscribe to the rss feed if you want to stay up-to-date.
Thank you.
