Building an Educational Game Marketplace with Vadim Polikov of Legends of Learning

Vadim Polikov is the CEO of Legends of Learning, online educational games for teachers and students with 2,000 fun, curriculum-aligned, math and science games created to engage students and assist teachers using hybrid learning, blended learning & distance learning models.

Vadim loves to learn and build. Bold new ideas excite him and he wants to put them into practice. He sees his career as a series of ideas built to fruition and scale. He wants to make an impact and believes creating self-sustaining for-profit businesses is the best way to make an ongoing impact. He believes entrepreneurship is an incredible process that creates value, ideas, jobs, and products. It is a big reason why he thinks the US is such an amazing country.

He has built three successively larger businesses and is now focused on building the next one, a really exciting Ed Tech startup that uses games to help teachers teach in the classroom. He also acts as an angel investor on the side.

He is incredibly thankful for Duke University, which provided his undergraduate and graduate education, and for the Baltimore community, which provided a fantastic childhood. He hopes to be able to give back to both communities.

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Transcript

Alexander Sarlin: 0:05

Welcome to Season Two of edtech insiders, where we talk to the most interesting thought leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, educators, and investors, driving the future of education technology. I'm your host Alex Sarlin, an edtech veteran with over 10 years of experience at top edtech company. Vadim Polikov is the founder and CEO of legends of learning a platform with over 2000 curriculum aligned learning games used by over a million students and built by over 500 indie game studios and an ever improving content marketplace prior to legends of learning, Vadim founded and ran Astra solar, an innovative residential solar installer acquired by direct energy in 2014. Other experiences include academic publishing medical devices, investment banking and neuroscience research. Vadim holds a BS and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University. Vadim Polikov. Welcome to Ed Tech insiders.

Vadim Polikov: 1:10

Thank you excited to be here.

Alexander Sarlin: 1:11

I'm excited to have you here. So legends of learning huge ecosystem for educational games, can you give our listeners a little overview of how you got into the EdTech space, and specifically how you decided to focus on games in education.

Vadim Polikov: 1:28

So I am a serial entrepreneur, I've started a few companies in the past, and with each company, I can remember the moment that kind of the spark the idea came. And for legends of learning, I was sitting in my house and I was kind of on a sabbatical after I had grown and sold the last company. And I was reading this really big, thick book about a medieval European history. And I was thinking what is going on here I am using my basically vacation time to read history book for fun, what is going on here? Okay, and then I started thinking about, and I could trace it directly back to a game I played when I was a kid, I played civilization, when I was a kid, civilization, the game. And I remember loving that game. And it really sparked a curiosity, and a lifelong love of history that I carry to this day. And I started thinking, wow, if a game back when I was a kid could get me to have a lifelong love for history. Why isn't this being used in the classroom? Or what's going on? Why can't we get this in front of students. And so I started talking to teacher friends of mine, and I thought they were gonna say, a games, they're frivolous, nobody wants them. But that's not what they said at all, they actually said, we would love to use games in the classroom, it's just that the games that are out there, they're just not built for us. They're too long. You know, civilization is a wonderful game, but you try to play civilization in a history class, it's going to take the whole year, they're too long. Yeah, they're not aligned to the standards, we actually have to teach, right, we have to teach standards. So the games need to be aligned to the standards, they have to work on the you know, junky internet connection and Chromebooks that we actually have in the classroom, not on some high end machine that we don't have access to. And then we need tools as teachers to make sure that the classes is on task. So we need to be able to start and stop the games to create assignments to look at data. And there's nothing really out there like that. So I thought, well, I have experience in building two sided marketplaces, I can see that these game developers around the world are getting better and better at building engaging games. What if we build a marketplace of game studios that builds curricula games directly aligned to standards that teachers can actually use in the classroom. So that's how legends of learning was

Alexander Sarlin: 4:05

born. That's fascinating. You know, when I was in graduate school, I did a paper about civilization, because for years, that was the gold standard of, you know, an educational off the shelf game that inspired so much learning. And you had you know, Kurt Squire and Constantine colored Wisconsin talking about it. And I think your realization is so important because there was a movement to bring games into the classroom for a while, but there was a real lack of understanding of how to make games actually work in a school environment. It's one thing to say this game is great. It makes people learn what a phalanx is, and they're so interested in the game and another to say we actually want to teach through gaming. So you've mentioned four different types of innovations that you learned about through teachers. Talk to us a little bit about what it's like if you're a teacher using legends of learning. How have you solved for the standards mapping? How have you solved for the contextualization and teacher can integrate the games into their actual curriculum, explain what it's like for a teacher getting started with legends of learning.

Vadim Polikov: 5:07

So let me actually start with the way that a game studio works on our platform. So our role as the middle of that marketplace is, we take the curriculum that's out there that teachers have to teach. These are usually state level standards sets a next generation science standards, Common Core, state level standards, like TEKS, and so on. And we chop them up into small pieces, bite sized pieces, usually at the standard level. And then we ask studios around the world professional game studios, so they know how to build fun games. But we asked them, you know, who has an interesting way of teaching how to add fractions, who has a unique game designed to teach photosynthesis. And so these games studios around the world, they raise their hand and say, you know, I think I have a cool way of teaching how to add fractions. And they build a 10 to 15 minute game that is directly aligned to the curriculum that they need to teach. We provide them with the curriculum that their game must teach. But we give them complete creative freedom to come up with whatever game works, right. So they want to build a tower defense game, go for it, you know, if it's a side scroller, Sure, no problem, if it's an RPG, you know, it's whatever they believe is the best way that teachers are going to like this, and students are going to be engaged. So they build that, let's say, 10, to 15 minute game teaching how to add fractions, and they bring it to us. And then we work with teachers who are in the classroom to check to make sure does this actually teach the standards it's supposed to teach. And it's purpose built for our platform. So those that work with the SDK that we provide them. And then assuming that it passes those quality control hurdles, it goes on the platform. And here's where it really shines or fails, because it's competing with other games that also teach adding fractions by other studios. Right? And so let's say I just built that game. Well, there's usually five to seven other games that are teaching adding fractions, and is my game better than theirs? Or is it not as good as theirs. And ultimately, teachers and students are the ones deciding because every one of these games is actually rated by both teachers and students. And the game studios make money based on how much play time their game gets. So we actually allocate revenue over to the game studios as a percentage of play time. So if you've got a game that's played 1% of the time in the platform, you'll make, you know, 1% of the revenue share. And obviously, as our revenue grows, that pot available to the game studio grows, and so that's more incentive for them to make ever higher quality games. So as a teacher, I'm going to log in, and today I'm teaching how to add fractions. And I see let's call it seven games built by seven different studios, all teaching, adding fractions, different ratings on them different lesson plans around them, and curriculum supports that we provide. And as a teacher, I take a look at it and say, Okay, class, I want you all to play game number one, and then game number seven, and then take this assessment number three, that's also provided by the platform. And the students, they log in, they like game number one on adding fractions, game number seven on adding fractions as part of their assignment. And because the teacher chose game number one, again, number seven, those games get played time, and those are the ones that get paid. And over time, we remove the lower quality games. And so this is a platform that is evergreen, it is responding to the feedback from teachers, by the demand of teachers, you know, the most coveted areas on the platform are the ones that teachers care the most about. So they have the very best games. And so this is, I think, one of the only examples, if not the only example of what I would say kind of an evergreen, self improving content marketplace in K 12. We have these in higher ed and in other areas. You know, Coursera is a great example, right? You build a better, you know, class, and it replaces a different class. But where is this kind of interactive content getting better in K 12? So that's kind of the view from the teachers point of view of launching those games to the students and the students learning through gameplay. Yeah,

Alexander Sarlin: 9:25

you mentioned, you know, experience building two sided platforms. And you can tell in that answer, that you're basically creating a ecosystem whereby game studios are incentivized to make short standards aligned, you know, games, and then the teachers and their students by proxy, get a chance to rate them and you know, use that as sort of App Store style dynamics or Coursera or Udemy style review dynamics to actually let the best games you know when and take off and become the sort of standards and that's it's very unusual model and exciting. model. And I think one of the reasons it's unusual and exciting is that game studios, you mentioned having 500, which is amazing. You know, there are lots of game studios around the world. Generally, they're looking for sort of how to make the biggest bang for their buck, right how to make a game that's going to go out into an app store or into some kind of, you know, Flash game, right, and not a flash anymore. But you know, html5 game marketplace and sort of win money through ads or win money through downloads. And you come in with a completely different proposition, say, hey, teach this exact standard for second grade science? And we'll find you an audience. How do they respond to that? What does that look like?

Vadim Polikov: 10:41

They love it. And they love it for a few reasons. Number one, as you said, what we're doing is we're kind of aggregating demand for them, right? There is no market for a 15 minute photosynthesis game, there just isn't, you can't build one and put it to the App Store, who's going to find it, Who's going to care about it, who's going to buy it, and certainly a district isn't going to care about it, a teacher is going to what they're gonna go to the App Store, download that 15 minute game, somehow get all those those apps to the devices in the classroom, there's just no market for standalone curricular games, because there's so many curricular topics that need to be covered, right? adding fractions is is something that everybody covers, but they only cover it for a short period of time, right. So there's no way for there to be kind of a standout, you know, Blockbuster game in K 12, if you're trying to do curriculum, because each part of the curriculum just needs to be covered for a short period of time. So in the past, these game studios have really had no way to build for the K 12 curricular space. And in fact, if you look around, there is a large graveyard of games that have been built for K 12, it's actually quite sad, because they're really, really good. Somebody goes out and says, you know, we really should make a great ecosystem game. And then they go out, and they spend a lot of money, either their personal money or investor money or government grant money, and they build the world's best, you know, ecosystem game. And then what happens? Well, you know, I've been to ISTE, you know, and some of these conferences, and you see these 10 by 10, booths, and these bright eyed kind of excited entrepreneurs, you know, you walk by their booth, I built this amazing game. And I say, let me take a look at it, I take a look at it like, wow, that is a great game. How are you getting it in the hands of teachers? And unfortunately, they say, Well, I mean, I'm here at this conference, right, had a lot of sales, but I think this is the way to do it, right. And so what we're doing is, we're kind of aggregating the demand together, because what a district cares about is not an individual game, or even a set of games, they care about a set of curriculum. So what we sell to districts is, hey, here's access to K through eight, math, or here's access to K through eight science, you have the whole curriculum, the full scope, and sequence, you can cover everything through game based learning. And from a game studios point of view, we know they focus on the things that they're really good at, they're really good at making fun, engaging content, what they don't like, is all the sales and marketing and distribution. And that's what we're really good at. We're the ones who kind of make sure that it's easy for the teacher to use. We have the field sales team that goes and talks to the district leaders that has the relationships with the districts. And so the game studio is perfectly happy to give us that responsibility. And they can focus on the things that they love to do.

Alexander Sarlin: 13:48

And the specialized skill set of selling into K 12. Schools and districts is another part of the tech ecosystem where many companies have, you know, there's a big graveyard, as you mentioned, there's a lot of companies with good products, but have no way to get into the system. Legends of learning is interesting in that it has that you know that B to s selling to schools model as well as a b2c model, you do have parent customers and individuals and families. I'd love to hear how you approach that part of the ecosystem as well. I can imagine that curriculum alignment and a whole ecosystem of safe, you know, educational short games, could be really appealing to individual families in the homeschooling Crowd, as well as to schools. How do you approach that?

Vadim Polikov: 14:31

Yeah, so this also comes from prior experiences in b2b and b2c world. So in my prior company, had a large field sales team over 100, folks and when transferred over to the K 12 space, I mean, you know, you gotta it's a field sales model. When you go to talk to districts, they want to have those relationships. You have to build those relationships and build that trust over time. Make sure all the content is super well. lined with their curriculum and their standards, that it's rigorous, that it's actually something that is not you know, it's not a toy. This is this is rigorous curriculum, it just happens to be in a game based learning format, which, you know, we could discuss is actually different than, than gamified. Learning. This is game based learning. So we have these, like you mentioned over 2000 games built by over 500 studios on the platform. Today, we cover K through eight math and science, we're constantly expanding that coverage as we go. But what we realized is that students want to continue to play at home, I mean, legends of learning is pretty much the most fun they've ever had at school, and they love it. And the teachers are really excited because their students are so engaged with the material. And so in order for us to send the learning to home, we need a model where the student can actually control their own learning path that leads us to a product that we have on our platform called awakening, which is built by an internal studio. So I talked about all these external studios that are building these short 10 to 15 minute games. We also have an internal studio with really industry veterans from the commercial game industry. So folks who come from Sphero, and Zynga, and Bethesda games and Zenimax. And for axis and epic and Rockstar Games, these are really, really high end game developers who have come together here at Legends. And they build a game that surrounds all of these 2000 plus games, in an environment where the student they get an avatar, they walk around in multiplayer, RPG world, they collect things, they they battle these, these little pets called beasties, they build out their own spaces. And all of this is educational. So in order to level up in order to collect things, in order to collect the currency that you need, in order to keep moving forward, you have to progress in your learning and to progress in your learning, you are playing these learning games, you are answering the assessment items that are within assessment paths. And so it's a personalized learning paths for the students. And so that student driven path is something that students continue to play at home. And there the business model is, you know, a subscription based model. So a free to play model where students can play for free, you know, the and do as much learning as they want. But if they want to subscribe and open up areas of the world that they don't have access to without subscription, then those are folks that buy the subscription, of course, for the parent, you know, if you ask me, as a parent, I'm a parent of four, would I rather have my kids spend an hour at home playing Roblox or spend an hour at home playing a learning game like legends of learning, and then to say, Hey, I'd rather have them play learning game, you know, if it's all the same to them, and they love it, let's have them play the learning game. And so obviously, there's a subscription, the kids are even more excited and spend more of their, let's say, gaming budget time budget on learning game versus just kind of any other consumer game.

Alexander Sarlin: 18:14

It's a really interesting model. And I can definitely imagine, there is a nice connection between Kids Playing Learning Games in school that they're really enjoying, that they really liked doing, they're getting used to learning through game based learning. And then, of course, you know, maybe they want to continue doing it at home or accelerate through the curriculum, or try different variations. And the ability to continue, it makes a lot of sense. You mentioned the difference between game based learning and gamification. And this is, for those of us who have been, you know, following this space for a number of years, this has been this fierce back and forth, you know, debate or conversation forever. And we recently had Sean Young from class craft on the podcast, who went out of his way to say what we're doing is gamification. They're not playing games, they're doing schoolwork, and we're gonna make the game like the game reward system around it, and the getting the avatars around it. And that's gamification. But you just said, Hey, what we're doing is game based learning, not gamification. tell our listeners, why that is the case. And maybe you can give your personal definitions of those two terms.

Vadim Polikov: 19:15

Yeah, I mean, I think that everyone is actually familiar with gamification from their personalized, you know, every time that you put on your Fitbit, and it's telling you, hey, you need a few more steps in order to get that badge. You know, there's a little bit of nudge there. Okay, yeah, I'll put those steps in or whatever, right. So kind of adding game like elements to non games to incentivize certain behavior is gamification. And actually, I think that there's a role for gamification in a lot of different areas, including in school, and there are areas of gamification within our app as well. So you know, when you we have something called quiz games on our platform that are actually those are not built by the external studios, but these quiz games you know, the game plays not really related to the questions that are being asked. It's a way to review it's a way to practice and, and there's a lot of value in that. And so that gamification piece where the gameplay is not really related to what you're asking. I mean, you can imagine kind of mario jumps, jumps, jumps. And then a question about, I don't know, Newton's Laws comes up, and you're like, Okay, well, this has no relation to Mario, but it doesn't matter, because I really want to get the, the coins that come out of this, so I can level up Mario, right. So I think that there's value for gamification, and teachers see it and use it. But what is unique about us is that game based learning piece, game based learning, the game is built to teach something through play. And the gameplay is directly related to the topic being taught. So, you know, I mentioned kind of adding fractions before, there's a bunch of different ways to teach adding fractions, but like, we've all had pizza, right. And we've all seen slices of pizza. And a game based learning would be, you know, maybe you're running a pizza shop, and the customers are asking you for certain amounts of pizza, and you have to add the fractions of the pizza together. That's a very kind of mild example. But you can go deeper and deeper into game based learning, one of the things that I love to say is, I am a terrible game designer, I have no idea how to build fun games, I am not a game designer, I'm not a game developer. But and these game developers, these game designers, they are so creative. You think that there's you know, maybe one way or two ways to teach something. Now there's, there's a million different ways to teach it. And the incentive for the game studio is to sit there and think, for weeks and months with different prototypes for what's the best game design to teach this particular topic. So sometimes we'll get requests and you know, from another studio is that, oh, you know, I built a game about this topic, can I put it on your platform, and we usually we say no, because you didn't build it for the very specific unit of content that you need to build it. So every game on our platform is custom built to teach that particular unit of content that that particular standard. And so every game is unique, and every game is, is teaching through play. So that's kind of game based learning. When works well. It's all kind of combined together, where you have the game based learning components that teach through play, embedded in a gamified, exciting kind of world that the student wants to continue to play in. And even the teachers want to assign for their students,

Alexander Sarlin: 22:38

just to drive this home for our listeners, because I think it's one thing to hear you describe the different types of games and creativity coming out of the studios. And it's another to see it. And you know, I'm looking at the page about cells and life science. And you have your next generation science standards about multicellular organisms, and how the two main types of cells are prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and no define nucleus and, you know, real the standards, the science standards, and then the games are things like the discovery of Robert Hooke, that where you're joining Robert Hooke and his great adventure through the cellular world, you know, join discovering and classifying cells, here's another one called monkeying around with cells where you're needing to shoot bubbles, and match the colors, so that you can get, you know, figure out how the different cells go together. Here's one called cells in life where you're flying through a science lab, having to destroy cells with your microscope. And, you know, you really can see, you know, in real time how the, the learning objectives are translated into these creative game like fun environments. And that's, you know, that's a few of I think, six different games just to learn that particular set of standards. I'm curious about your what else would you add to help our listeners sort of picture this ecosystem?

Vadim Polikov: 23:54

Well, what you would see, you know, in front of you, I think, is also ratings on each one of those games. So each game has a rating by the teachers and rating by the students. It's kind of like, you know, Rotten Tomatoes ratings, the critics review and the users review, right? The teachers typically write games based on curricular content and quality, and the students rate the games based on how fun it is. And in order to be successful in that form, you actually have to do really well with both the students and the teachers. And some of those games that you mentioned, you know, some of them are more higher rated than others. And we publish probably five to 10 games every week, new games on the platform, and we remove about that same amount, because over time, we want to remove the lower quality games to free up slots, free up space for new studios to come in and build better games to leapfrog the games that are there. And I think, you know, this is really, you know, that's that's a pretty unique spot in the K 12 ecosystem here where the interactive content It constantly gets better over time.

Alexander Sarlin: 25:02

Absolutely. And for those who haven't seen, you know, tweens and teens play games in a few years, there are a whole lot of online sites that do this type of mini game that are not at all educational, you have, you know, the cool math games is educational version, you have new grounds, you have, you know, addicting games, there's a whole ecosystem of sort of these mini games that kids play online, and it has exactly the dynamics that you're mentioning, where you know, you're going to play the games with the high reviews, you're going to play the games that are most popular, you're going to try the games that other people are recommending this sort of this social review mechanism, that as you've said, we see in in other parts of edtech, like, you know, Udemy classes, or, you know, ratings on Coursera courses, where people make choices based on social proof, it's powerful to have it in a game mechanism. And the fact that you're taking games down just means the catalogue is turning over, there's more and more different things to explore. So I'm sure students find it very familiar from what they do in their personal gaming life, like the App Store or these sites of HTML games.

Vadim Polikov: 26:10

Yeah, I mean, one of the big frustrations that I had coming into this space is, it just seemed to move very slowly, right? Like a publisher would put out a textbook, and then seven years later, they would slap a new cover on it. And now there's a new version of that textbook, and where was the feedback cycle there to make that textbook better? You know, where is it where a teacher could point to a specific page and say, I wish you had said this a different slightly different way, or, you know, I'm going to rate this image three out of five stars replace it next time, you know, there's, there's just no feedback mechanism that operates quickly in the K 12. Space. We're so used to it in our consumer lives, right? You, you buy something on Amazon, it comes in, it sucks, you rate it poorly, that vendor is going to be gone, it's pretty soon, right? Or you write your Uber driver highly, and now they're going to get more business. So there just doesn't exist, something like that within k 12. And I think we wanted to put that in place for interactive content. And, you know, I think the closest parallel might be like Teachers Pay Teachers, but you know, those are valuable resources, but they're not interactive content that that teaches. And I think you also mentioned, things like cool math games, or, you know, I don't really like cool math games, you know, I've actually seen my students bring it home. And it's been frustrating to me when we're comparing, you know, legends of learning, which is research backed, you know, we've got published work with Vanderbilt University and top tier journals. You know, we're working with Wes that on efficacy studies all the time, we're showing real significant gains, in end of year test scores for the main tests at the state level, within very large districts, very large studies. You know, I think that that research approach and my background is actually as a PhD bench scientist, so I wanted to make sure that when I, whatever we're doing here at Legends actually makes a big, I mean, a real difference. And it's not just, Hey, we tried it out with a classroom, they liked it, you should buy more of it. Real, you know, high level controlled trials. You know, HIE s, a tier three s are tier two, and even as a tier one studies,

Alexander Sarlin: 28:27

couldn't agree more and, you know, learn platform publishes sort of the most commonly used education apps each year. And I'm always shocked at how many of the ones in the top tier are have exactly what he just said at coolmath. Games is always on there. It's used ubiquitously because it's free and open. It has absolutely no research behind it. It's not organized by standard, it's a total mess. You also see things like you mentioned your quiz games. And there's a whole series of very popular and successful edtech companies based purely on that quiz game model, including, of course, Kahoot, and quizzes. And I'd love to ask you a little bit more about that research, I was actually going to be my next question about sort of the efficacy of this, you have teachers saying, my kids are loving, and they're even doing better on the Assessments I'm giving them so I can, I can see some progress. But tell us about the research that you've done, and how this game based learning is actually leading to serious outcomes in the classroom.

Vadim Polikov: 29:25

You know, when I was starting legends of learning, you know, I wanted to make sure that there wasn't really a question in my mind that kids would like games. I mean, that's, that's a no brainer. Kids are gonna like games. But do the games actually teach and help students with with end of year exams and with what they're supposed to learn? And so I worked with researchers at Vanderbilt for a large, controlled trial, teachers taught two sections, and one of the two sections was randomly assigned to get games from our platform and the other section and was just regular instruction by the same teacher, you know, at the same pace. Since the games are a lot directly aligned to the curriculum, the teacher didn't have to make any sacrifices on the curriculum that they covered. And it was for, you know, a controlled trial is actually a pretty large trial, over 1000 students across, I think it was 16 different districts or schools, wide variety of demographics. At the end of it, when they took the test, the students who played the games, under the same teacher outperformed the students who got regular instruction to a statistically significant level. And it was a large enough publish, finding that it was published in the Journal of Learning Sciences, which is a top tier academic journal. Since then, we've done a lot of studies that, like I said, with either out in the wild with the districts themselves or with with research partners, like West Ed, we are, and I think later this week, I have a final call with with West Ed on a study in a very large Florida district that showed basically, the more students in that district play legends learning games, the higher they got on their end of year science exam, to a really high level, like, you know, I don't know how familiar your listeners are, but like, a point six standard deviations, which for a large study is actually quite a lot, right? It was a dose dependent. So the more games they got, the higher the benefit was, and it was not related at all to other factors like SES, and race and gender, the presence of English as a second language, ell. And so, you know, basically, this comes back to all kids like games, okay? We, as human beings, we learn naturally through experience and play. Like, that's just, that's just how we're built. Very few people are built to learn from big, thick textbooks, but we're all kind of built to learn from grappling with the problem from playing with it from, you know, interacting with it with our friends. And at this point, pretty much every kid plays games. So it doesn't really matter whether what what kind of background you come from, or what you look like, you're going to like games, you're going to enjoy them. And you're going to learn more effectively through experience in play. So that's why, you know, it's not a surprise that you get the kind of results that we're getting from the research studies.

Alexander Sarlin: 32:25

It's really encouraging as somebody who has been, you know, in and out of the game based learning movement for many years, I did my graduate work on it, it is so validating to see that, you know, for one thing that you can actually create a game ecosystem that can be tested in the schools in this way. It's not just okay, the kids played civilization in an after school program, what happened, which is what it used to be. And it's not just, they did cool math games, and there's no controls on anything. And the satisfaction went up. And the teacher said it was a fun year, it's actually rigorous, really, incredibly exciting. I want to ask about the awakening product, because I think there's something very interesting in there, which is that you know, by creating a sort of metal layer, where you can take these 1000s of learning games, and contextualize them in a big game where you know, people are leveling up and building up an avatar by mastering different subjects in math and science, you're really creating something that is more than the sum of its parts, any game can be used the top rated games, kids can customize what they're doing and focus on areas of interest. I'd love to hear you talk about what is sort of the big vision of where awakening might go and how you get to combine all of these studio created, you know, mini games, we might call them 15 minutes into something enormous. How do you see that future?

Vadim Polikov: 33:48

Yeah, so we're very excited by where this is headed. As we progress with our kind of technical platform, we are getting more and more tools to the game studios to build ever higher complexity, higher quality games, a lot of the innovation that goes on behind the scenes is how do you get a 3d world to really sing inside of a Chromebook browser. And over time, we're opening up the Creator tools for the studios to build out the awakening world. And so I see a future where there are hundreds and 1000s of studios that are on the legends of learning platform, building educational and curricular experiences in an open 3d world. And I don't know if how familiar you are with Roblox, but kind of similar sort of model where what we are responsible for at Legends of learning is bringing the creators on giving them tools to build those educational experiences, which includes curriculum and quality control and access to the to the customers. And we are responsible for things like the avatar and multiplayer aspects of the world, the economy, but the creators are the ones creating the educational content. And as it stitched together, you know you've you've you've used the word Metaverse on this show before, we see ourselves as kind of building out that learning corner of the burgeoning Metaverse, right where anyone can learn anything through experience and play. And I think in the long run, what we've realized is our model can scale beyond K 12. You know, whether you have a curriculum that is, you know, middle school math, or it is econ 101, in college, or it's how to be safe in a warehouse, as an employee, we can take curriculum, chop it up into pieces, and then work with game studios around the world to build that content out. And so we just see a future where if you want to learn through text, you go to the library, you go to Wikipedia, you pick up a book, you read a blog, if you want to learn through video, you go to Coursera, you go to Udemy, you go to Khan Academy, you go to YouTube, if you want to learn through experience and play, you come to legends of learning, because that's where the interactive content is.

Alexander Sarlin: 36:21

Very well said. And I think that's a terrific note to leave our listeners on very inspiring. And the fact that you've already gathered, you know, hundreds of games studios and found an incentive structure that allows them to make and profit from educational games means this feels not like an imaginary world, but something we could actually reach in the next few years. It's really exciting. I hope it's in place in time for my son to be able to learn through interactive play. I would love that for him. I end the podcast with two questions, as you know, one is, what is a trend in the EdTech landscape you see sort of popping up right now that you think our listeners should keep an eye on.

Vadim Polikov: 37:06

So I think the trend that really popped out that really came through as a result of COVID. It's really around parents getting a lot more involved in their kids education. So I mentioned, you know, I'm a father of four, and I just kind of assume they went to school and school did their thing. And then they came home and I didn't really have to think about it or worry about it. Now all of a sudden school came home. And I saw the the kind of the issues and the challenges that teachers face. And it was very clear to me that, wow, maybe I should do something about their education, not just at school, but outside of school as well. And so I think that that whole opportunity for parents to get more involved in their kids education, I think leads to a lot more interest on the consumer side. And you know, we have over a million monthly active users in the school system, which is in us k 12. system, million monthly active users. That's cool. That's great. And we're growing. But if it actually can be taken home, and parents can watch their kids play and learn that number can grow significantly. So I think that trend is really exciting for parents to really have started kind of paying attention and wanting to be more involved in the educational journey of their of their children.

Alexander Sarlin: 38:29

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And there are more choices than ever before for them to be able to supplement or try out different kinds of models of schooling, which is, I think, exciting for families as well. And what is one resource that you would recommend for our listeners to go deeper into any of the subjects we talked about today?

Vadim Polikov: 38:49

So I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to technology. And I love this whole concept of the metaverse growing up. It's kind of a combination of AR and VR and developer tools and technology. And I think there's a lot of things being kind of thrown around for what the metaverse is or what it is in or where it's gonna go. And as I was trying to figure this out, I came across a blog by Matthew ball who's a venture capitalist. So it's Matthew ball.vc. And he writes about the metaverse in a very, very thoughtful in a way that is really thinks through all the different components and he recently wrote a book I think it was a bestseller called the metaverse and I would really recommend that book because it is really approachable. It is detailed, but it is just very well written and really explains all the kinds of pieces that are coming together into something that can be quite exciting in the next let's say 10 to 20 years.

Alexander Sarlin: 39:50

Terrific suggestion. I have my copy of the metaverse but I have not yet cracked it open even after all of these amazing conversations about the metaverse I think this is the forcing function to I am going to really deep dive into it and read it because it feels like a good place to sharpen the ideas. Thank you so much, Vadim. Polikoff, of legends of learning, and legends of learning, awakening, incredible work putting together the game studio world, the parent world, the teacher world, the school world into something that is really promising for the future of game based learning and obviously already working. Thank you so much for being here with us at Tech insiders.

Vadim Polikov: 40:26

Thank you, Alex. It's been fantastic. Thanks for listening to

Alexander Sarlin: 40:29

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