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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Today, computer technology has advanced to a great extent and continues to
develop in giant steps. Powerful computer systems are available to
consumers at reasonable prices. Computer networks, examples of which are
the Internet and America Online.TM., are accessible at reasonable cost to
all. Digital graphics, images, audio, video, and multimedia are widely
available on discs and over networks. Software tools and languages, C++
and Java, for example, are now powerful enough to enable software
developers to build sophisticated applications, including those running on
networks.
The processing, storage, multimedia, and networking capabilities of modern
computers, such as personal computers, are perfectly suited for presenting
educational and cultural content in an interactive, creative, and
interesting fashion. However, educational and cultural applications of
computers have not reached their full capacity and there is a need to
develop computer technology that facilitates more extensive use of
computers for educational and cultural purposes.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to computer technology, including computer networks,
and the preferred embodiment is directed to the implementation of computer
technology for educational and cultural enrichment.
The computer system and method of the preferred embodiment uses computer
technology in a unique way to motivate children to devote more time to
educational and cultural enrichment. It should be noted that although the
referred embodiment relates to a system aimed at the education of
children, as understood by persons skilled in the art, other applications
of the disclosed system are also envisioned here.
In general, in the preferred embodiment, educational material is provided
at a child's local computer (also referred to as a "user's computer")
under control of a central computer system. Children's local computer and
a central computer are connected over a computer network. On completing a
particular educational task, a child is rewarded with a certain number of
points. Children's accumulated points are stored centrally. Points are
based on criteria consistent with the educational material and, for
example, are awarded based on the level of difficulty of a given task, the
child's level of performance, and other considerations, such as progress
demonstrated in a certain discipline over time.
Points that a child accumulates by completing educational exercises can be
redeemed towards the purchase of goods and services offered through the
system of the preferred embodiment by its commercial participants.
Purchasing transactions are also administered by the central computer and
can proceed in a variety of ways. For example, the child may order goods
and services by selecting from menus presented by the central computer,
which, in turn, orders the selected items by telephone, e-mail, mail, or
otherwise from a vendor or distributor for delivery. The central computer
may also send a message to the local computer to print out certificates
redeemable at participating vendors of goods and services. Also, points
may be redeemed by downloading requested goods available in digital
electronic form, such as software, games, music, and video. It is
preferred that the offered goods and services be items desirable by the
children so that the prospect of obtaining these items is a motivation for
the children to diligently pursue the educational materials available in
the system.
Parents have their own way of accessing the system of the preferred
embodiment, and it is preferred that the parents' password not be given to
a child, who has his own, usually different password. Parents preferably
use the system for several purposes. First, parents support their
children's purchasing activity financially. Preferably, the parent
authorizes the system to periodically (e.g. monthly) allow purchases to be
made through the redemption of the child's points, up to a certain limit,
using the parents' credit card account, or makes other payment
arrangements (e.g., though the use of electronic cash or direct account
withdrawal). Preferably, part of the parents' payment is used as a
periodic service fee for the service provided by the preferred embodiment
of this invention, while the rest is used for financing the redemption of
points by the child for goods and services. Moreover, the parent can
authorize a system-initiated increase in the purchasing power of the
child--a "bonus"--by, for example, permitting certain advertising messages
to be displayed to the child as the child uses the system.
In the preferred embodiment, the parent controls the content of the
material available for presentation to the child. For example, the parent
may limit the difficulty of educational presentations to be made to the
child by specifying the age of the child, or by indicating an explicit
desired level of difficulty. Also, other considerations, such as whether
to emphasize mathematics, science, literature, music, art, etc., can be
under the control of the patent. Furthermore, the parent may exclude
certain categories of goods from being made available to the child for
exchange of earned points by the child.
In this consumer-oriented society there are desirable commercial
items--deemed "cool"--that children of various ages want, such as popular
games, toys, movies, clothing, admission tickets to arcade games and
sporting events, etc. Parents typically spend money to purchase these
items for their children. These items, though usually innocent, frequently
do not bring intellectual, cultural, or developmental benefits to the
children. Often, such items are advertised and promoted through mass media
that are not designed to educate, enlighten or develop, such as
television, which at best serve as passive entertainment. Parents, on the
other hand, usually prefer spending money on educational, cultural, and
developmental products that facilitate the intellectual and emotional
growth of their children.
The present invention uniquely fulfills the desires of parents to
facilitate their children's intellectual development, and, at the same
time, provides children with access to the goods and services they most
desire. Although this goal is accomplished by the system of the preferred
embodiment, other useful applications with perhaps different goals than
the ones of the disclosed system can be built by persons skilled in the
art on the basis of this disclosure.
It is understood that "parent" is not necessarily a biological parent,
custodian, or adult authority, and can be anyone who performs the tasks
identified herein with "parent." Such a broad category of users that
perform the tasks generally associated with the parent, as explained
herein, may be referred to as users in the parent category. Similarly, the
"child" is not required to have a biological, subservient, or dependent
relationship to the parent and can be anyone who performs the tasks
identified herein with "child." Such a broad category of users that
perform the tasks generally associated with the child, as explained
herein, may be referred to as users in the child category. The "central
computer system" (also referred to as the "central computer," or "central
facility") may include one or more physical computers as determined by
specific implementation trade-offs, given the constraints of a particular
implementation, as known in the art. In some embodiments, the central
computer may comprise computers loosely interconnected by a computer
network.
Educational materials, presentations, and exercises refer to content used
in the preferred embodiment. Preferably, this content includes a variety
of educational and cultural presentations and exercises, which include
standard textbook-like exercises, spelling, mathematics, history, and
geography lessons, reading comprehension, reading an article on a subject
and answering questions, standardized tests, scientific material and
problems, and all other content used for educational purposes. Other forms
of educational and cultural materials can be provided as well, such as
learning about music, art, and theater--through multimedia presentations,
for example--and playing chess. Competitions, in which winning
participants earn points, are also included in the definition. In fact,
educational materials include any and all educational and cultural
exercises and material intended to educate, enlighten, train, or develop.
A person skilled in the art will appreciate that in embodiments for
purposes unrelated to education, other relevant content can substitute for
the educational content of the preferred embodiment.
In other embodiments, terms such as "parent," "child," and "educational
materials and presentations" can have different meaning, and can be
entirely unrelated to the education of children. For example, a company's
management can sponsor employee training based on the system of this
invention. In such an embodiment, the company plays the role of "parent,"
paying for on-line courses, and employees play the role of "children," who
earn college credit for their participation. The company finances
educational courses and optionally exercises some control over the
selected curriculum; employees take courses, which constitutes their
participation. "Educational materials" include course lectures and
materials, assignments, and examinations, while earned "points" are
credits redeemable for college degrees at participating educational
institutions.
Educational materials can be provided to the child in a variety of ways.
They can be available on the central computer of the service of this
invention, for example, or provided by third party content providers. To
use them, the child may interact directly with the remote computer of the
service, or alternatively, they may be downloaded to the child's local
computer, so that only the resultant tally of earned points is
subsequently provided to the central computer for storage. Another way
that the materials can be provided is on a disk, such as a CD-ROM, so that
only the results of the interaction with the child are provided to the
central computer.
A user's computer is any appropriate data processing device available to
participants in the service provided by the system of this invention. In
the preferred embodiment, it is a conventional personal computer with a
modem (or other network connection), a CD-ROM drive, hard-disk drive, one
or more diskette drives, a central processing unit, random access memory,
color monitor, keyboard, a graphical interactive input device, such as a
mouse, and printing devices, such as laser and ink-jet printers. "User
computers" (or "local computers") also can be other computer devices that
may be used by users of this invention, such as, computer terminals with
sufficient intelligence and interfaces, computer workstations, Internet
appliances and TV's, and other computer devices having sufficient
processing, storage, input, and display capabilities.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention will be better understood when taken in conjunction with the
following detailed description and accompanying drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 illustrates computer architecture and organization of the preferred
embodiment;
FIG. 2 illustrates the flowchart of log-in procedure;
FIG. 3 illustrates the flowchart of parent dialogues;
FIG. 4 illustrates the flowchart of child dialogues;
FIGS. 5A and 5B illustrate the flowchart of a general scenario of an
educational presentation;
FIG. 6 illustrates the flowchart of the purchase subsystem;
FIG. 7 illustrates the flowchart of the new child account dialogue;
FIG. 8 illustrates the flowchart of the parental preferences dialogue;
FIG. 9 illustrates the flow of modify child account dialogue;
FIG. 10 illustrates the flowchart of monitoring child's progress;
FIG. 11 illustrates the flowchart of the feedback manager;
FIGS. 12A and 12B illustrates an Entity-Relationship (E-R) diagram for the
system database;
FIG. 13 illustrates the architecture and configuration of the
administrative subsystem;
FIG. 14 illustrates the communication network configuration of the
preferred embodiment of the present invention;
FIGS. 15A and 15B illustrate a flowchart of an alternative embodiment
implemented wholly at the local computer.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
FIG. 1 illustrates the overall architecture of the central computer system
in the preferred embodiment. Block 101 illustrates the database storage
subsystem. In the preferred embodiment, it is one or more magnetic storage
disks organized to support the information storage and retrieval needs of
the system disclosed below. Such disks are known in the art and are
available commercially. Also, other physical storage media, e.g., optical
storage, may be used, as known in the art. In the preferred embodiment,
the entire database storage system is located at the central computing
facility. A person skilled in the art will appreciate that in other
embodiments it can be distributed throughout different sites, including
storage at users, local computers. In the preferred embodiment, each of
the remaining blocks shown in FIG. 1 are software modules that execute on
a computer or computers located at the central facility. (In other
embodiments, some or all of these modules can execute in a distributed
computing environment, including users' local computers.)
Block 102 depicts the database management system (DBMS) that provides
capabilities typical for such a system, including data retrieval,
insertion, and modification, as well as database queries, as is known in
the art. It is used in conjunction with the file system capabilities
provided by the native Operating System. In the preferred embodiment, some
data, as described below, is not managed by the database management system
but is instead handled through the Operating System's file system
directly. In the preferred embodiment, the database management system 102
is a relational database management system organized to support the data
needs of the system disclosed herein. (In other embodiments, other data
models, e.g., "hierarchical" and "network," may be used. Direct use of the
computer's file system capabilities, which are provided by the computer's
native Operating System, is possible in some embodiments as well, which
could obviate the need for a database management system altogether.)
Preferably, database management system 102 is based on commercially
available database management software. Such software is presently
available, for example, as IBM.RTM.'s DB2.TM., ORACLE.RTM.'s line of
database management systems, or the INFORMIX.RTM. brand of database
systems. Specific implementation trade-offs should be considered in
selecting the database management system.
Administrative subsystem 103 manages the resources of the system and, as
illustrated, is interfaced to the database management system 102. The
administrative subsystem 103 is used by the system administrator(s) and
management for monitoring performance; fraud detection; performance tuning
adjustments; adding, deleting, and modifying educational and cultural
material and presentations; modifying user data in the database; billing;
and system backup and recovery.
The help desk subsystem 104 supports human operators who communicate with
users. The operators deal with problems and concerns of users by answering
questions, providing suggestions, and addressing users' concerns in any
other way. The help desk subsystem is also interfaced to the data base
management system 102 to obtain up-to-date information about the users and
the system. The help desk subsystem software includes capabilities for
querying and modifying the system database (block 101) through the
database management system. In the preferred embodiment, operators
interact with users by voice over telephone and/or interactively through
computer-to-computer communication. The operators are provided with
networked personal computers interfaced to the database and with
telephones. They receive telephone calls and e-mail distributed in
accordance with operator queues as known in the art. (In other
embodiments, other methods of communication may be used, such as mail and
facsimile.)
The log-in subsystem 120 includes software supporting the log-in procedure
that is used to verify passwords of users who request access to the
system, as well as software for opening new user accounts, as discussed in
more detail subsequently. On a successful log-in, three subsystems of the
system are available to support interaction with the user after the log-in
subsystem 120 hands-off control to one of the three. These three
subsystems are: parent dialogues, block 105, for facilitating interaction
with the parent, as described in more detail below; child dialogues, block
106, for facilitating interaction with the child, as described in detail
below; and feedback manager, block 107, for facilitating interaction
between users and the system's management, as discussed in more detail
below. The feedback manager 107 is available to both the parent and the
child, whereas, preferably, the parent and child dialogues subsystems are
accessible, respectively, by parents only and by children only.
The payment access subsystem, block 108, is implemented using secure
software, as known in the art, for handling payment transactions. In the
preferred embodiment, payments are handled through credit cards, so that
the payment subsystem supports interactions with the credit card company
of the parent. In other embodiments, however, it may support other forms
of payment, such as e-cash (electronic cash), account withdrawal, ordinary
payment by cash, check, or money order, and invoice billing.
The presentation of content subsystem, block 110, delivers, in the
preferred embodiment, educational materials during the child dialogues.
This subsystem provides educational materials to the child in response to
inputs received from the child during the child's interaction with the
system. In addition, the presentation of content subsystem 110 performs
functions connected with the awarding of points on completing an
educational assignment.
In the preferred embodiment, the educational materials delivered to the
child by the presentation of content subsystem 110 can be located
centrally, i.e., at the database (block 101) of the system, in which case
the educational presentations subsystem retrieves and activates these
materials. Preferably, the central computer retrieves software from the
database (block 101) and downloads it to the user's computer, which
executes it and then returns the results to the central computer.
Alternatively, the educational material software can be executed by the
central computer, or the execution can be interleaved between the central
and local computers. In addition to being centrally located, however,
educational materials can be wholly or partially resident on an
appropriate storage medium, such as magnetic or optical storage, located
locally at the user's computer.
In the case that the presentation of the educational materials is executed
locally, the child chooses a particular presentation, which the
presentation of content subsystem uses to search the database (block 101
of FIG. 1). On locating the record of information associated with the
chosen presentation for the particular child and finding an indication
that the chosen presentation resides locally at the user's computer,
control is handed to a portion of educational presentation subsystem 110
software that executes locally on the user's computer. If the associated
database record indicates that software that executes on local computers
is stored at the central facility, the central facility retrieves this
software from the database, downloads it to the local computer, and then
transfers control to the locally downloaded software.
The locally running software manages the presentation of the educational
material and may administer any examinations that may be associated with
the presentation in order for the child to earn points. On completion, the
locally executing software establishes computer communication with the
central computer to transmit the results of the presentation and
interaction, typically the number of points earned, if any, by the child,
for correlation and aggregation with the child's accumulated point total.
If the locally-running software had been downloaded from the central
computer, it is preferably deleted following termination of its execution.
Other content--"educational materials" in the preferred embodiment--can be
provided by third-party content providers, in which case the database 101
may contain only an indication that these presentations are available,
along with the network location of such material. The third party content
can either be downloaded and executed locally at user's computer or
executed at the third-party computer.
The purchase subsystem 112 manages the purchase of goods and services based
on the points accumulated by the child. It is responsible for presenting
appropriate menus of offered goods and services that may be optionally
based on the parents' preferences; taking the child's purchase requests;
ordering chosen products and services from appropriate vendors,
distributors, and service providers; printing a coupon that can be
exchanged for the chosen goods or services if appropriate; and downloading
a digital product, or accomplishing the transaction otherwise. In
addition, the purchase subsystem 112 adjusts the number of points
available for further purchases following a purchase. To bill the parents'
credit card account for purchases made by the child, this subsystem is
interfaced to the payment access subsystem 108. In the preferred
embodiment, the purchase subsystem 112 is a software module executing
wholly on a computer or computers at the central facility. (In other
embodiments, some or all of this software can execute at various sites,
which may include users' local computers.)
The network subsystem 111 handles computer communication with users and
third party content providers by providing access to appropriate computer
networks. Also, participating commercial entities may be connected to
these networks for electronic ordering of goods and services. These
communications can take place either on the publicly available Internet,
using protocols such as TCP/IP, or on private networks. In the preferred
embodiment, this subsystem interacts with complementary communication
software executing on users' local computers, third party content
providers' computers, participating commercial entities' computers, and
computer network servers. (In other embodiments, different arrangements
may be found as known in the art.)
FIG. 2 depicts the log-in procedure of the preferred embodiment, which is
illustrated as block 120 of FIG. 1. At block 210, the user gains access
through the communications network to the central computer and is then
presented with the log-in screen, in which the system requests the user to
enter a unique identifier, known in the art as a "password," or indicate
that a new user registration is desired. The user provides the response at
the following block 211 at his computer. In the preferred embodiment, in
which the services provided by the invention are controlled by the central
computing facility, the response is then transmitted to that central
computing facility. The user may enter his password if he is already
registered as a user of the system with an existing account, or he may
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