codeSpark Academy, a Pasadena-Based Educational Platform, Becomes More Accessible to Teachers Through New Collaboration

Pasadena-based codeSpark Academy, an award-winning free computer science education platform for elementary schools, will be partnering with Clever, a free rostering and management system for educators, to help teachers, schools and districts simplify the management of their online learning platforms.

By joining the Clever Library, codeSpark will now be more accessible to educators, requiring one sign-on to the integrated platform and allowing classes to be set up with a few clicks, codeSpark said in a press release Monday.

“Teaching coding in elementary school can have enormous positive impact on young learners, improving their creative problem solving and critical thinking skills” Brett van Zuiden, Product Manager at Clever, said. “We are excited to welcome codeSpark Academy to the Clever Library and offer this award-winning platform to the over 60,000 schools who currently use Clever.”

Clever’s single sign-on (SSO) is used by more than 50 percent of schools in the U.S. to manage classroom technology, saving valuable time on technical preparation, and allowing teachers to focus on teaching and learning.

The Clever Library simplifies educational technology use by providing Single Sign-on, a process in which a single educator sign-on unlocks application access to an entire classroom; Resource Library, where educators can explore resources their peers are using and enables them to easily and instantly set up these applications using SSO; and District Recommendations, where school districts can recommend resources, making it possible for schools to access and use the same platforms across the district.

Teachers who already use codeSpark Academy in their classrooms can create a free Clever account, which gives them access to the full suite of secure, innovative classroom management tools and the other applications in the Clever Library, according to the press release.

For new teachers, the Clever Library makes it easy to discover, sign up, and sync class rosters with apps like codeSpark using SSO. All applications in the Clever Library are synced in real-time, the press release continued, resulting in a seamless experience for students using the applications, and teachers who need accurate data.

“Over 1.1 million students in the United States use Clever every day, making it the most popular SSO and rostering platform available today,” Grant Hosford, codeSpark co-founder and CEO, said. “Joining the Clever Library is an important step in working to achieve codeSpark’s mission of making computer science education accessible to kids everywhere.”

The Clever Library was founded by educators and technologists to speed the adoption and impact of learning applications in the classroom. Now, more than 50 percent of K-12 schools in the U.S. use Clever to deploy leading software applications and provide a secure, personalized learning experience for teachers and students. Clever is based in San Francisco.

Headquartered in Pasadena, codeSpark Academy is an award-winning computer science education platform for kids that are 4-10 years old. The app turns programming into play with a mix of curriculum based lessons, powerful creative tools and lovable characters called Foos. codeSpark Academy is the most used coding app for young kids and is played by millions in over 200 countries.

codeSpark was established by Grant Hosford and Joe Shochet, who are dads and serial entrepreneurs who’ve built world-class mobile products for leading companies like Disney, Idealab and eHarmony.

To learn more about codeSpark, visit www.codespark.com.