Open311: another model for questions & solutions

The story on What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York in the Nov 2010 issue of Wired explores 311 applications, and puts an accent on Open311. The growing set of 311 applications help citizens report problems such as open manhole covers, graffiti and broken water mains. It was discussed that they also might evolve to collect ideas for areas of need for a community and to direct citizen volunteers to assist in various projects. I see 311 type projects as one more class of question systems, but a type which provides a more substantive focus on real world solutions. Both types provide schools with a ready source of problems that can be used for real problems that can used in different curriculum content areas such as science and language arts.

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