Summer Learning Day: $300 Game Trial

National Summer Learning Day is just a month away! What are you doing to celebrate? Legends of Learning is extending its $300 trial offer until July 13 to help teachers and students better enjoy summer learning.

Students enrolled in summer class need a break from the daily routine, and Legends of Learning middle school science games are a great tool. Games offer kids an opportunity to enjoy summer school a little more, while simultaneously improving subject mastery. Original research backs up the impact of games!

Summer is a critical time for students to stay on track and close achievement gaps. Strengthening learning programs can give districts, teachers, parents, and students a much-needed boost. For more information, check out our summer learning white paper.

The National Summer Learning Association reports most families not participating in a summer program say they would if one was available, but the average cost of these programs is $288 per student per week.

As part of its launch, Legends of Learning provided teachers who signed up on its platform $300 worth of edgames for free. After July 13th, initial trial coins will be reduced to $100 for free.

Sign up for free games today!

Six Tips for Shaking Up Summer Learning This Year

Excerpted from How to Prevent Summer Learning Loss and Close Achievement Gaps. Download it today.

By the end of May, everyone is ready for a break from the school routine. Students stop responding to the usual content delivery methods, and as a result, summer learning loss sets in.

So change up your methods.

Develop summer courses that meet learning needs and curriculum standards while providing fun and engagement. Fun and engagement can take many forms, from project based learning to field trips to digital gaming. For example, Legends of Learning science games provide an interactive learning experience for students with questions aligned to curriculum standards. The teaching methods vary but should be aligned with your district’s overarching academic goals.

To help you get started, here are six quick tips to add a little variety to your summer learning programs.

Six Tips For Your Summer Learning Experience

1) Focus on Individualized, Personalized Instruction. Limiting summer class size allows teachers and students to interact one-on-one more often. As a result, relationships develop; students are encouraged to learn and grow; and teachers guide students toward classroom lessons and activities that fit the individual student’s learning level and style.

2) Take Kids on Field Trips. Teachers demonstrate learning is fun through field trips. Such trips can occur within the community and range from the zoo to a local bottling company. If funds are tight, supplement off-campus field trips with digital ones. Google and Discovery, for example, offer digital field trips that take place in the Sahara, Antarctica, and other locations.

3) Invite Speakers to the School Campus. Students see how curriculum lessons translate to life skills when people talk about their day-to-day work. Teachers could invite civic leaders, parents, and other people into the classroom to talk about their work experiences and background. Microsoft also provides experts for the classroom via Skype. Kids can hear from environmentalists, coastal engineers, and other pioneers in the arts and sciences.

4) Turn Facts into Skills with Hands-On Projects. Students learn what they live, so teachers should find ways to turn basic concepts into practical skills. Some schools facilitate this idea with community projects, such as a garden or recycling center. Some schools, though, involve students in activities like building a greenhouse or small-scale wind farm. Others take their students to community partners where they participate in activities and projects.

5) Keep Kids Engaged Inside and Outside the Classroom with Digital Games. Kids like games. Teachers often do, too. Edgames offer chances to connect with students on their level. Kids play online games all the time, so giving them games that facilitate learning and subject mastery is a no-brainer. Plus, edgames typically allow teachers and district administrators to monitor student progress and, depending on the implementation, keep budget costs low.

6) Test New Teaching Models and Classroom Layouts. Summer provides a perfect time to pilot new teaching models, methods, and classroom layouts, says Gary Huggins, CEO of the National Summer Learning Association. Explore blended learning models, edgames platforms, and other ways to engage students and build digital literacy skills. Assess impact at the end of the summer and expand what works into an official instructional approach.

No matter which method(s) you employ, remember that students are drawn in by new experiences. If you surprise them each day with even a small tweak to your instructional methods you will see a huge increase in student engagement. Try Legends of Learning science games and you will see some very excited looks on students faces. Have a great summer and shake it up!

Legends of Learning in the News

1. District Administration – Science-focused platform and game content to be released
In March 2017, Legends of Learning released its educational games (edgames) platform in 100 middle schools across the country. The games meet the standards for middle school science curricula, and CEO Vadim Polikov conducted a 1,000-student study in partnership with Vanderbilt University to demonstrate the games’ efficacy and ability to engage students.

Polikov will facilitate additional surveys and studies to provide more evidence in support of the Legends of Learning methodology in the near future. He explains, “Educators’ time is at a premium now, so providing them with something that is demonstrably effective and easy to use has a far greater chance of being implemented.”

But don’t take his word for it. Talk to one of the hundreds of teachers in the Legends of Learning Ambassador program, or better yet, start using the platform and become an Ambassador yourself!

2. DC Inno – Oregon Trail-Inspired Startup Wants More Video Games In Schools
“Who would’ve thought that one day Oregon Trail would inspire someone to start a company?” asked Samantha Sabin, staff writer at DC Inno. She was amazed at how Legends of Learning co-founders Josh Goldberg, Geoff Livingston, and Vadim Polikov formed their educational technology (EdTech) company.

The three men hypothesized curriculum-based edgames could engage kids in learning, and tested the theory in conjunction with Vanderbilt University researchers prior to establishing the company. The study showed vast improvements in test scores for students who played the games. Once the results were in, Legends of Learning launched their edgames platform in March 2017.

3. USA Today – ‘Spotify for learning games’ coming to classrooms
On March 27, 2017, Legends of Learning launched its edgames platform, an easy-to-use interface featuring 900 middle school science games for today’s classrooms. The company calls the platform “Spotify for learning games.”

Game developers, or “artists,” create standards-based games for “listeners”—teachers, administrators, and students. Teachers can earn free access to the platform in exchange for providing the developers with feedback.

Additionally, schools can pay about $10 per student for a learning management system (LMS) that measures student progress in the games. USA Today calls the platform “an all-you-can-eat menu of games,” and teachers like Rebecca from upstate New York agree – students playing the games are hungry to learn!

4. Getting Smart – Innovation in Education Is More than a New Approach
CEO Vadim Polikov writes that Legends of Learning brings a new strategy to education innovation: academic research. He hypothesized that edgames could improve student engagement in the classroom and put the theory to the test with help from Vanderbilt University.

The study provided Polikov with the evidence needed to establish Legends of Learning, a company that provides an online edgames platform that teachers use to bring games into their classrooms. Polikov’s work also contributes to the broader academic literature, with potentially massive implications for the future of education.

Another huge point of emphasis is ease of implementation. With an idea like this, Polikov says, “When it is easy and obvious, the barriers to widespread acceptance are much lower.” Legends of Learning achieves this with its intuitive platform, which is easy to use for students and teachers alike.

5. WTOP – DC startup Legends of Learning aims to be ‘Netflix’ for educational games
Legends of Learning provides all the ease and entertainment of Netflix and Amazon with its online edgames platform, amplifying productivity, engagement, and learning in the classroom. The platform hosts 900 games and counting, all of which are based on curriculum standards – NGSS, TEKS, SOL, and more.

The Legends of Learning platform is free for teachers as long as they provide feedback to help developers improve the games. Schools have the option to track student progress for a low-cost subscription fee.

6. EdTech Mag – Q&A: Vadim Polikov’s Startup Brings Game-Based Learning to Science Class
EdTech Magazine asked CEO Vadim Polikov what inspired him to form Legends of Learning, an EdTech company that provides curriculum-based games for classrooms across the country. He replied with his own childhood experience, stating, “To this day, I don’t remember what I learned in eighth-grade history, but I am a history buff because I played Civilization.”

Polikov’s background as a research scientist led him to explore why the game impacted him so. He partnered with Vanderbilt University to assess how edgames affected students and learned that games truly do, qualitatively and quantatively, increase engagement and test sores.

7. Baltimore Sun – Legends of Learning raises $9 million for expansion
In April 2017, DC- and Baltimore-based EdTech startup Legends of Learning announced it had raised $9 million from investors, including the Baltimore Angels. Legends of Learning will use the funds to expand the platform and related services, such as analytics and tracking. The company will also add employees to grow its library of games into other school subjects and grade levels and to serve more schools.

8. Baltimore Business Journal – Former Astrum Solar exec raises $9M for edtech startup
Legends of Learning, a new EdTech startup in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, closed a successful seed funding round totaling $9 million. The company offers an online platform for edgames – 900 of them, so far – supporting the middle school science curriculum. The seed money will be used to expand into other subjects and grade levels and to hire new company employees.

9. Potomac Tech Wire – “Today’s top story: Edtech Startup Legends of Learning Raises $9 Million in Seed Round”
A DC- and Baltimore-headquartered startup, Legends of Learning, reported $9 million in seed funding for its online education games platform. The platform features 900 games across the middle school science curriculum. The seed money will allow the company to expand into more grades and subjects, as well as conduct additional studies on game-based learning and its impact on student engagement and achievement.

10. DC Inno – The DC Inno Beat: NEW MONEY
Legends of Learning, a DC EdTech startup that offers learning games based on Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), is poised to grow. Thanks to a strong $9 million round of seed funding, the company will grow its staff from 14 employees to 30. It will also develop games for other grade levels and school subjects.

11. Technical.ly – DC edtech company Legends of Learning has raised $9 million in seed funding
In March 2017, EdTech company Legends of Learning released its online platform containing 900 middle school science games for the classroom. At the same time, it raised $9 million in seed funding. The funds are earmarked for growth; the company will be hiring new employees in the spring and summer to expand into subjects across all K-12 grade levels.

12. EdWeek – Do Digital Games Improve Children’s Math Skills?
Students in Florida’s Hillsborough County schools are showing improvements in math after using classroom games such as TiViTz. In addition to higher achievement, teachers are reporting increased enthusiasm among students playing these edgames.

A 2014 study showed that nearly three quarters of K-8 teachers nationwide are using digital games in their classrooms. Related studies, like the one conducted by Legends of Learning founder and CEO Vadim Polikov, have demonstrated strong positive correlations in student achievement – and enjoyment – with the use of digital edgames.

13. EdWeek Market Brief – K-12 Dealmaking: EVERFI Raises $190 Million; Legends of Learning, Marco Polo Raise Funds
Legends of Learning, a new edgames company that launched in March 2017, raised $9 million in its most recent round of seed funding. The company brings research-driven, curriculum-based games to schools.

Its 900 games cover a variety of middle school science topics. With the new funds, Legends of Learning will expand to more subjects throughout K-12 curricula.

14. EdSurge – New Research Proves Game-Based Learning Works—Here’s Why That Matters
In order to successfully implement game-based learning (GBL) in classrooms, edgames must engage students while also supporting curriculum standards. Prior to founding Legends of Learning – an education startup with a curriculum-based GBL platform – Vadim Polikov led an academic study with Vanderbilt University researchers to determine the efficacy of the company’s approach.

The study found that students who played edgames were more engaged in the classroom, and performed significantly better on standardized tests, than those who didn’t play. Polikov has a second, larger study in the works to continue to examine the efficacy of GBL. Research like this is critical in adopting of new, innovative techniques in the classroom, and advancing education in America.

15. EdSurge – How to Roll Out Game-Based Learning—and Boost Engagement—in Your Classroom
Before launching Legends of Learning, an EdTech startup that provides GBL content for classrooms, CEO Vadim Polikov teamed up with researchers at Vanderbilt University to conduct a control study with more than 1,000 8th grade student participants. Students who played the edgames demonstrated stronger understanding of classroom subject matter and scored higher on standardized tests than those who didn’t play. Teachers also reported that students – including those who were normally less engaged in class – had more organic conversations about the subject matter while playing, and had fun doing it!

16. EdSurge – Classroom Gaming Should Be Engaging, Tied to Curriculum—and Not Require Teachers to Code
In order for edgames to be effective, they must be easy for teachers to implement. This can only happen when the games supplement lesson plans with engaging, curriculum-based content.

New education startup Legends of Learning focuses on efficacy, delivering easy-to-use games that adhere to NGSS curricula and fit into short class periods. Before founding the company, Vadim Polikov partnered with Vanderbilt University researchers to conduct a large-sample control study.

The results were promising for both teachers and students, and led Polikov to launch Legends of Learning in March 2017. The company’s platform hosts 900 edgames, and teachers who use it say students are showing improved classroom engagement and better grasp of difficult concepts.

Creating a Blended Learning Culture in Your School

Excerpted from Eight Steps to Successfully Implement Blended Learning in Your Classroom. Download it today.

Having technology in your classroom can be a fantastic thing. It has the potential to expose your students to a world of information, hand’s on projects and game based learning, like our middle school science games. In order to maximize your classroom experience with blended learning it is critical to have a school culture that supports technology integration.

Getting Administrators & Parents On Board With Blended Learning

Teacher working in a blended learning classroomMaking the shift from traditional learning to blended learning is daunting and impacts every stakeholder in a school community, including leaders, teachers, IT staff, students, and parents. As a result, the journey from old to new, from traditional to blended, must be a shared journey—one in which all stakeholders are engaged and all voices are heard.

For a blended learning initiative to be successful long-term, decisions cannot be top down or device driven. Instead leaders must carefully consider why they want to make a shift to blended learning and how that shift will benefit members of the school community. To get administrators and parents on board, use these two approaches.

Administrators

Administrators may hesitate to invest in blended learning because of cost or lackluster results. Overcome their concerns with detailed research and data that show blended learning’s past successes and your plans to implement the teaching model in the classroom.

Administrators also want hard numbers about projected academic performance. They prefer financial documents, implementation plans, and blended learning examples. The more data and documentation you can provide, the more likely your blended learning proposal will receive approval.

Parents

Parents care about academic performance on a more personal level—everyone wants their child to succeed. They want to know how their child is performing academically, and what you’re teaching in the classroom. They also desire to learn how to help their child improve test scores and study habits.

To reach parents, talk through how blended learning will motivate their student to learn and excel, they will back the initiative. Your conversation could prompt them to become advocates on your behalf and secure support from administrators, other teachers, and peer parents.

Establishing A Blended Learning Culture In The Classroom

Child doing work in a blended learning classroomBlended Learning Universe marks the importance of culture in blended learning success. The organization states:

Blended learning can sustain a bad culture or help create a new one. Culture is especially useful — or toxic — in blended programs because blended learning goes hand in hand with giving students more control and flexibility. If students lack the processes and cultural norms to handle that agency, the shift toward a personalized environment can backfire.

Start With Clear & Honest Communication

As such, your blended learning culture sets the tone for classroom instruction and assignments. It fosters the right attitudes in students, inside and outside the classroom. Culture can affect parents, too, causing them to encourage, rather than frustrate, their students’ blended learning activities.

To establish culture inside the classroom, begin with clear and honest communication with your students. Set expectations for your blended learning program, whatever it encompasses—classroom projects, edgames, student teams, at-home assignments, et cetera.

Use The “TRICK” Acronym

Also employ “TRICK,” an acronym suggested by Esther Wojcicki and Lance Izumi, authors of “Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom.” The acronym stands for trust, respect, independence, collaboration, and kindness. When your classroom embodies those five traits, students learn, grow scholastically and personally, and desire to help their fellow students.

Outside the classroom, you should also focus on communication, this time with parents. Just because you got their initial buy-in doesn’t mean your work is done. Let parents know how their kids are enjoying and improving thanks to your new blended learning environment. Remember that some parents may not be familiar with digital technologies and tools, especially if you teach in a rural or underserved area. Share basic information about blended learning with these parents, and offer opportunities for them to experience it in the classroom. Showing parents how blended learning works can better convince them than a letter sent home.

Spread The Culture Across The School Campus

Finally, aim to spread your blended learning culture across the school campus. Your own success with the initiative often sells itself, but you should talk about it, too. Sharing results and personal testimony invites other teachers to participate in blended learning and make a difference in their classrooms.

Learn More About Blended Learning With LoL

Our online educational games at Legends of Learning works perfectly with and seamlessly integrates into blended learning models. For more information, give us a call at 888.585.1317 or contact us online today.

You can download the whole white paper Eight Steps to Successfully Implement Blended Learning in Your Classroom here on the Legends of Learning site.

Teacher Appreciation Day: Here’s to You, Teachers

Tuesday, May 9th, is Teacher Appreciation Day (sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA), a moment in which we stop to honor the incredible commitment of our nations’ teachers.

The day coincides with the National Parent Teacher Association’s (PTA) National Teacher Appreciation Week, held during May 8th-12th.

Teachers should be recognized for their hard work and service.

Throughout the week, parents and students make cards and deliver candy. District administrators typically provide a catered lunch or breakfast for teachers and staff. This year, the PTA increases the fun and excitement with its #ThankATeacher contest. Federal, state, and local governments get in on the action, too, with teacher of the year awards like the one managed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

Teachers Should Be Celebrated All Year Long

These things are wonderful. However, teachers should also be celebrated throughout the rest of the year. Teachers play a vital role in the lives of young people, imparting the skills and knowledge students need to reach a bright future. But teachers far exceed that role—they often are surrogate parents, therapists, sales people, and legends.

As Donald Quinn, a former educator, tells it:

If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs and some whom didn’t want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher’s job.

This year alone, more than 3.5 million teachers across the country will teach 55+ million students. That equates to billions of graded papers, lesson plans, student coaching, calls to parents, teacher-parent conferences, field trips, and more. A teacher’s job is never done, not even when the bell rings and school lets out for the afternoon.

The average teacher works 12-16 hours a day and spends about $500 of their personal earnings on school supplies every year. Their take home pay averages around $49,000. One thing is clear about the teaching profession: Teachers aren’t in it for the money.

Teachers Share How to Celebrate Them

So how can we appreciate teachers every day? Teachers provide an answer. They want to be listened and responded to. Teachers are the keys to success of any school. When they feel empowered by the district administration and supported by the community, they achieve the impossible in their classrooms.

At Legends of Learning, we know the theory as fact because we quite literally listen to teachers. Their feedback and ongoing conversations with our game developers and Ambassadors affect the games we publish. For us, listening is a way to simultaneously honor teachers, create a product that impacts the classroom, and change education for the better for everyone.

Here are some examples of the great things our teacher Ambassadors are doing with the Legends of Learning edgames platform.

Shanda Seibel, 5th Grade Teacher, Prarie Creek Elementary

Shanda gets her students excited about human impacts on Earth’s systems with games including The Big Picture Hosted by Zedd: Animal Agriculture and Skunk Dunk: Increasing & Decreasing Human Impacts. “Legends of Learning games give students the opportunity to learn their science skills and vocabulary in a fun and engaging way” says Shanda. “Students are in a generation of gaming. I found this year that Legends of Learning brought as much engagement as my science experiments.”

Kerrie Seberg, 7th/8th Grade Science Teacher, Walter G Byers School

Kerrie reviews the structure of the atom with her students in the game “Escape is Elementary.” “They love how the game is like Mario!!” says Kerrie. “Personally, I loved how they were overheard debating the definition of ‘subatomic particle!’”

Mariana Garcia-Serrato, 7th/8th Grade Lead Science Teacher, Adventure Program

Mariana discovers that students love test review, especially when it means choosing their own edgames. For test prep in 8th grade, I displayed the complete list of LOL learning objectives,” said Mariana Garcia-Serrato, a middle school science teacher in California. “Having that list of discrete learning objectives proved an easy way for them to decide what to study!”

You can log in and play these games today on the Legends of Learning platform. To become an Ambassador, visit our site and fill out this simple form.

We hope you have a fantastic Teacher Appreciation Day. Thank you for all you do inside the classroom and out!

Game Based Learning and the Blended Classroom

Game Based Learning (GBL) and the blended classroom have become increasingly popular instructional options as teachers strive to improve teaching and learning. These two instructional forms complement each other well. Both serve the 21st century classroom by engaging students in their education and giving them opportunities to develop not only basic curriculum mastery but also critical thinking and problem solving skills.

GBL uses games to aid students’ learning. Although GBL can drastically transform instruction, as in the case of using World of Warcraft to teach humanities, GBL can be as simple as playing Jeopardy to review materials before summative assessment. Both applications involve games to complement or replace more traditional instructional methods, such as lectures, Q&As, and worksheets.

Most teachers employ some form of GBL. However, we must be careful not to confuse GBL with gamification. In gamification, a teacher incorporates the mechanics of game play and game design into the curriculum. Teachers who espouse GBL take a very different approach. They infuse the curriculum with games, and the games become primary methods to introduce, explore, explain, and reinforce material.

What Is Blended Learning?

Blended learning fuses online and traditional “brick and mortar” instruction. Some teachers assume using technology equals a blended classroom; however, blended learning should be viewed as more of a spectrum between traditional “brick and mortar” instruction on one end and online-only classes on the other.

Most truly blended classrooms feature 1) students who access some class content and instruction online outside of the traditional time and space of the classroom, and 2) a Classroom Management System (CMS) such as Edmodo or Moodle.

Teacher using game-based learning in her blended learning classroom

Game Based Learning & Blended Learning In Practice

GBL fits seamlessly into a blended instructional model. Games can act as bridges between the physical, face-to-face environment and an online classroom in at least three ways.

Independent Game Play Outside Of Class

First, a student could play games independently, outside the regular class time and setting. Sites like Quizizz and Quizlet have popularized this method. For this to be successful, teachers must possess some way to track student progress and learning. This usually occurs in the form of tracking time spent on the game and assessing students’ answers and feedback to questions.

Teachers Meeting With Students Virtually

Students using online educational games within a blended learning classroomSecond, a teacher could meet with students in a virtual environment. Examples of such environments include Minecraft: Education Edition and Second Life. With this method, the teacher schedules a time to meet in a virtual space within the game. Students and teacher are therefore in different places but meeting at the same time. The mode of instruction varies depending on the virtual environment and game limitations. A lecture is possible in Second Life, for example, but not Minecraft.

Students Meeting & Playing Together In A Game Environment

Third, a student could meet and play with other students in a game environment without teacher supervision. The situation arises when students are assigned collaborative Minecraft projects or asked to compete against other students in some games found on ABCya!.

Benefits Of Game-Based Learning In Blended Learning Classrooms

GBL perfectly suits a blended classroom framework. With it, teachers meet students’ expectations—today’s students already “game” with other students. Teachers also overcome challenges found with typical homework assignments and assessments.

Games can reduce testing anxiety and increase student motivation to engage and learn. In fact, some teachers see students playing games outside of class sheerly for the joy of it. For those reasons and many more, game based learning will become a more common mode of instruction that extends learning beyond the classroom.

Scott Beiter teachers science at Rensselaer Jr. Sr. High in Rensselaer, New York. Follow his blog, Full Sail Science, to learn more.

New Features: Simplified Log In and Rostering

We’re happy to announce two new major features that were unveiled on the Legends of Learning platform today. The first is a simplified log in page. This new login makes it clear where students should log in. Heretofore, many students were mistakenly (or intentionally) logging in to the platform as teachers.

The second major change is the addition of more rostering functionality to the platform. This feature set allows teachers to create class rosters, and launch playlist to a class roster. It also allows students to join an active playlist as a rostered class member. In addition, teachers can now create a student in a student page, a playlist page, or a session page.

Several other minor enhancements were made to improve the teacher experience, including ensuring no timeouts for teacher sessions if they are using the application. Legends of Learning will continue rolling out enhancements as they are built and tested for quality assurance.

Legends of Learning Closes Seed Round as Product Launches to Enthusiastic Reviews

 

$9 Million Raise to Support Team Growth, Market Expansion

 

The following is a press release issued this morning about Legends of Learning’s seed round of fundraising.

Legends of Learning closed its seed round of fundraising with a total raise of $9 million. The fundraising round follows the successful launch of our initial game-based learning platform that has been met with praise from educators and recognition by influential media organizations. The company was featured in a recent USA Today article that explained how its platform can overcome a barrier to “getting high-quality learning games into K–12 classrooms.”

Legends of Learning, which is co-headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Md., will leverage the funds to execute its long-term strategic plan in the education sector. The investments will allow the company to meet demand by hiring additional team members and expanding its platform to new school grades and subjects.

The company was founded by Vadim Polikov, a research scientist who previously started Astrum Solar, a top 10 U.S. solar installer, and American Journal Experts, a large academic editing company serving the international scientific research community.

Joining Polikov as co-founders are Larry Cynkin, chief technology officer, who was formerly with Comcast and Honesty Online; Aryah Fradkin, manager, Teacher Outreach, who is a former Baltimore City, Md., teacher; Joshua Goldberg, chief strategy officer, and an Astrum Solar co-founder; Geoff Livingston, chief marketing officer, who is an award winning digital marketing entrepreneur; and Sandy Roskes, chief operating officer, and a former Astrum senior executive.

“This team brings vision and experience to the table. The successful closing of this seed round will let us accelerate our focus on helping more teachers reach students with research-driven, curriculum-based education games,” says Polikov.

Legends of Learning launched at the end of March with a first-to-market approach of 900 curriculum-based education games for middle school earth and space science, life sciences and physical science curricula. The games, created by over 300 game studios, are based on rigorous academic research conducted in partnership with Vanderbilt University.

Unique aspects of the Legends of Learning game-based learning platform include:

  • Short games (5–25 minutes) that align to middle school science curriculum standards to ensure content engages and helps students succeed in their studies;
  • An intuitive platform similar to Netflix and Amazon that makes games easy and natural to use in classrooms; and
  • A dashboard that allows teachers to observe student comprehension in real time, create game playlists for classes and individual students, and assess content mastery.

The company will demonstrate its technology platform and games publicly at the International Society for Technology in Education Conference & Expo June 25–28 in San Antonio, Texas.

Caitlin Unterman on GBL & the Legends Platform

Caitlin Unterman (see her DonorsChoose Page here) is and 8th Grade Earth Science and Science Exploration at Forest Middle School in the Bedford County School District. She also partners with NASA to deliver a class in her school.

Caitlin is also one of the first teachers demoing the Legends of Learning platform. She shares her insights with Aryah and new co-host Sean Reidy about game based learning, NASA, the Legends of Learning platform, and much more.

Legendary Ambassadors Rebecca & Scott Beiter

Two of our strongest ambassadors in the community are Rebecca and Scott Beiter. This husband and wife tandem teach at two different school districts in upstate New York.

They share their insights on game based learning and what it is like to help Legends of Learning build its games and platforms from ground zero to market launch. In addition, Rebecca and Scott share the story of how they both got into teaching science, and the teacher conference life. Enjoy this super fun podcast!

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