Hall III · Who made this · Three seniors, one studio
OnLit Children's media literacy Try a game

Hall III · Who made this · founded 2026

Three seniors, three projects, one mission.

OnLit is one of five capstone projects in Riverdale Country School's CS Capstone program.

OnLit's three co-founders, Ezra Marks (Cornell '30), Matilda Sales (Stanford '30), and Timothy McKenna (Dartmouth '30), standing together outside Riverdale Country School.
Left to right: Ezra Marks (Cornell '30), Matilda Sales (Stanford '30), Timothy McKenna (Dartmouth '30). Riverdale Country School, the Bronx.
Portrait of Timothy McKenna.

i Member 01

Timothy McKenna

Co-founder & game engineer · Dartmouth '30

Builds the games. Designed and shipped Dino Party Patrol (six levels of media-literacy gameplay in Godot) and led development of Lanternville, the lateral-reading shop-sim that opened in beta in May 2026.

Senior at Riverdale Country School heading to Dartmouth in the fall, where he plans to keep building.

Portrait of Matilda Sales.

ii Member 02

Matilda Sales

Co-founder & game engineer · Stanford '30

Shapes how OnLit shows up in the world and built The Whole Story, the comic-style branching-narrative game that teaches the SIFT method (Stop, Investigate, Find better coverage, Trace) through five scenarios of real kid-encountered misinformation. The beta preview opened in May 2026. Runs communications with educators, families, and partner schools; leads visual design and brand voice across the games and the site; organizes the playtests that keep our levels honest with the kids we are building for.

Senior at Riverdale Country School heading to Stanford in the fall, where she plans to keep building.

Portrait of Ezra Marks.

iii Member 03

Ezra Marks

Co-founder & platform engineer · Cornell '30

Builds the platform every OnLit game runs on. On the backend, set up a secure database for parent accounts, kid profiles, and progress tracking, with authentication designed so kids never need to share an email and parents always see exactly what their child is doing. On the frontend, shipped working versions of OnLit for desktop and tablet browsers, plus downloadable apps for iPad and Mac. All three surfaces share a single codebase, so any improvement ships to every device at once.

Also drafted the privacy policy to meet COPPA compliance (pending legal review). Senior at Riverdale Country School heading to Cornell in the fall, where he plans to keep building.

IV Advisors & supervision

Built with educators in the room.

OnLit is part of Riverdale Country School's CS Capstone program and develops in consultation with classroom teachers, librarians, and learning-science researchers.

01 · Capstone supervision

Mr. Abate & Mr. Fisher

Supervise the program through Riverdale's CS Capstone, where OnLit is one of five senior projects this year.

02 · Research informed

Stanford Civic Online Reasoning

The pedagogy traces to Stanford's Civic Online Reasoning work and feedback from Sam Wineburg on how kids actually learn lateral reading. We translate the research into mechanics, not lectures.

03 · Classroom tested

Real playtests, every level

Every level passes through real playtests with kids 7 to 12 before it ships. If a nine-year-old can't tell us what the level taught them in their own words, we rebuild.

Building OnLit with families and educators.

We are testing and iterating beyond the capstone. If you would like to try early versions, share feedback from a kid or classroom you know, or explore a partnership, we would love to hear from you.

Email the team