Welcome back to What’s New in Game-Based Learning – our monthly roundup of the 🔥hottest🔥 news in the world of game-based learning, games for impact, and AR/VR for education! Check out our highlighted articles below, then let us know on our Facebook or Twitter if we missed anything!
Years ago, we met up with Classcraft on our podcast to learn more about their innovative take on the classroom gamification space – and now, EdSurge reports they’ve just closed a $7.5 million Series A funding round! With their service now supporting 6 million users across 160 countries and 11 languages, Classcraft’s fantasy-themed classroom management suite is poised for a bright future – and we couldn’t be happier for their continued success!
If you’re a follower of Filament Games, you’re likely already aware that we’re making a wholesome robotics sandbox game called RoboCo. A hybrid PC desktop and VR title, the game received a ton of attention when we took it to PAX West last month – including a feature in virtual reality publication UploadVR. We met up with Aron Garst at the Indie MEGABOOTH for a hands-on demo of RoboCo – check out their initial impressions!
Harvard Graduate School of Education students Hassan Brown and Kevin Bryant both entered school with a shared passion for educational innovation and technology – and now, they’ve teamed up to create VRsatility, an AR/VR project designed with teachers in mind. Supported by both the Harvard Initiative for Learning & Teaching and Harvard Innovation Lab, the project aims to provide a virtual learning space for teachers to practice simulated scenarios prior to entering real classrooms, particularly high stakes situations which would otherwise be difficult to replicate in live settings.
Less than one year after partnering with the Institute of Play to bring their cardboard construction platform Labo to classrooms around the U.S., Nintendo is teaming up with UK-based nonprofit UKIE in support of their ‘Digital Schoolhouse’ initiative. In addition to providing hardware for more than 30,000 program participants across the UK, Nintendo will host this year’s Digital Schoolhouse esports tournament, offering students the opportunity to flex their Super Smash Bros Ultimate skills while also exploring careers in tech and gaming at the event’s adjacent career fair.
Ubisoft is back with a brand new entry in their Games for Change award-winning Discovery Tour series – this time, based off the world of ancient Greece as depicted in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Featuring guided tours, loads of artifacts and locales to explore, and opportunities to converse with historical figures like Leonidas and Socrates, Discovery Tour: Ancient Greece is not to be missed – and it’s available now as a free update for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey players or as a standalone game purchasable via Uplay.
Curious which stories made last month’s roundup? Check out our September 2019 entry here!