Deadline: 17-Jul-20
The Public Affairs Office of the U.S. Embassy Khartoum has announced an open competition for a cooperative agreement to manage and develop an online interactive platform for the FY 2020 Sudanese Folktale Project.
The Sudanese Folktale Project is a multi-tiered program that supports English Language teaching. The project involves two primary components: a series of short radio shows, and a series of complementary online activities. The radio programs are being produced under the auspices of a separate grant agreement. This Notice of Funding Opportunity invites proposals solely for the development of the online platform.
The purpose of the online platform is to actively engage listeners of the radio programs by providing audiences with opportunities for continued English language learning and assessment. Project development and planning should begin within one week of the receipt of audio files containing the radio programs. The online content, ideally should be ready when the radio scripts are ready to be broadcast.
Product Description
- The Sudanese Folktale Project is a series of 21 short radio plays based on Sudanese folktales translated into English. The radio plays are designed to help English language learners improve their ability to comprehend English, primarily spoken English.
- Each radio play is 5-12 minutes long. These radio plays are being recorded in Khartoum, Sudan. Audio files of the radio plays will be supplied to the online developer. The online developer is responsible for naming the files in a way that is compatible for production.
Online Functionality
- After learners listen to each radio play, we want them to go online and complete comprehension questions to assess how much they understood. Therefore, we are writing manuscripts of comprehension activities that can be turned into digital interactions. Each folktale will have 15 comprehension questions. The Embassy thinks the questions should appear one-by-one on a mobile device. The awardee/online developer should outline the best platform for presenting the online content for the intended Sudanese audience. The online developer will be provided text content, developed by English language teaching experts, the online developer will create the most engaging format to present them interactively and for users to track their progress, as well as allow PAS Khartoum to see the results in aggregate.
- The text content will follow these patterns:
- A learner is using his phone and logs in to his account. They select the name of the folktale he listened to on the radio.
- They select the quiz for that folktale and see one question at a time appear on screen.
- They answers the question, click “next”, answers a question, and so on until all 15 items are complete.
- The learner then sees their score as the number correct (8/15).
- The data is collected and saved. The next time the learner logs in and takes the same quiz, they should see the score as the new number correct (11/15) and the data for both scores should be saved. We want to be able to assess improvement.
Online Interactive Activities
- The manuscript of the online comprehension quizzes will be supplied to the digital producer by U.S. Embassy Khartoum. The manuscript will be written in MS Word with no formatting unless otherwise requested. The Digital Producer is responsible for naming the files in a way that is compatible for production purposes.
- A set number of interaction item types will be used and answers will be indicated in the manuscript. Normally, the digital producer and content writer would agree on the item types, but the content will be written first and the digital production will come at a later date. Therefore, only widely-used interaction types are being proposed for the content of the quizzes.
Funding Information
- Award amounts: awards may range from a minimum of $1,000 to a maximum of $5,000
- Length of performance period: 12 months
Eligibility Criteria
The following organizations are eligible to apply:
- Not-for-profit organizations, including think tanks and civil society/non-governmental organizations
- Public and private educational institutions
- Individuals
- Public International Organizations and Governmental institutions
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=327710
