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Bloomberg
Social game developer Zynga is moving into school spaces in an official capacity as “Words With Friends” receives an educational edition.
First introduced in 2009, the mobile sensation “Words With Friends” has been made over for use within school teaching settings.
“Words With Friends EDU” is the result of Zynga’s refit, and it’s being released as a free download for iPad, Android tablets, and on the web.
The new version of the app is intended for teachers and pupils of grade school years 4 to 8 — children between the ages of 8 and 12.
Zynga, which found early success through “Zynga Poker,” “FarmVille” and “CityVille” on Facebook, acquired the studio behind “Words With Friends” little over a year after the app launched in August 2009.
Remarkably similar to enduring board game Scrabble and first available on iOS and since 2011 on Android systems, “Words With Friends” became one of the App Store’s Top 10 free games of all time, Zynga said at the launch of “Words With Friends EDU,” with the spin-off’s inspiration currently hosting an estimated 55 million matches “at any given moment.”
The educational edition has been altered to provide a focus on vocabulary common to textbooks, assessments and required reading, while learning is incentivized through the use of milestone badges and avatar customizations.
On the teaching side, teachers and parents can stay up to date with how students are progressing through the game’s milestones and the US’s corresponding Common Core State Standards Initiative.
The “Words With Friends EDU” move follows Microsoft’s January 2016 acquisition of “Minecraft: Education Edition” (also known as “MinecraftEDU”), which leverages the ubiquitous building block play space of “Minecraft” to provide education opportunities across all manner of subject areas.