Games and Learning

When SimCityEDU was launched a year ago, it was hailed as a new generation of learning game that mixed gameplay with an assessment of student learning. A new partnership with the school technology firm Clever will likely mean more teachers will now get a chance to take those tools for a spin in the classroom.

SimCityEDU is about to get a boost in its classroom integration efforts through a new deal with the tech firm Clever.

“This partnership is about providing educators with the easiest possible way of integrating SimCityEDU into their classroom,” said Matt Frenz, partnership manager at GlassLab, maker of SimCityEDU. “We expect that this opportunity will help give us an even better understanding of what our customers need. If that results in sales a year from now, then that will be fantastic. But this is more of a learning experience than anything.”

Clever is a company that provides school districts simple and secure integration with their student information system (SIS) and offers students and teachers single sign-on access to their favorite applications.

Now those users will have free access to SimCityEDU for the remainder of the 2014-2015 school year.

Frenz said the move would not only increase the number of students and teachers using the game but also improve the underlying assessment tools GlassLab has built.

“The more students and teachers we have using SimCityEDU, the more accurate our assessment models become. With that comes a more robust assessment engine capable of even deeper analysis of Systems Thinking — the competency SimCityEDU assesses,” he said. “With improved access from Clever, we’re able to achieve this scaling quicker and more efficiently.”

For their part, Clever officials said the move would add a major new application to the company’s growing offerings to schools. The firm already has similar deals with Khan Academy and the CK-12 Foundation.

“The main benefit is making it easy for schools to discover great software to help students learn, and deploy it in a seamless and automated way,” Tyler Bosmeny, CEO and co-founder of Clever, told gamesandlearning.org.

Bosmeny added that Clever offers GlassLab an important bridge into the classroom.

Many people don’t realize how challenging it is to use software in a classroom environment. If you have to ask teachers to individually create accounts for all their students, or expect students to keep track of new usernames and passwords, it can make otherwise great products impossible to use in the classroom environment.

Tyler Bosmeny, CEO of Clever

He added the firm will help teachers seamlessly create and manage those accounts.

“We know teachers want to use games in their classroom, so we’re always searching for ways to make it easier for them to do that. Clever makes it even easier to use SimCityEDU in any classroom in the country. We’re thrilled to be working with a partner that values ease-of-access as much as we do, and excited to reach even more educators and classrooms with Clever,” said GlassLab Executive Director, Jessica Lindl.

According to Clever, over 30,000 schools across the United States use the system and more than 150 applications now integrate with Clever.