Space Academy AR

What is Space Academy AR app?

Space Academy AR is both learning time and fun time! It takes a comprehensive learning platform that teaches children and gives them opportunities to practise and then adds to it a technically impressive game. The app only grants access to this game when children have earned it in the educational content.

In this Space Academy AR review, you'll see how well the reward meshes with the learning experience.

What we love about Space Academy AR?

Education apps giving out reward activities are nothing new, but Space Academy AR is one of the few that has taken this idea beyond a token attempt. While other apps give out virtual stickers and sticker books or dress-up characters, Space Academy AR includes a whole game that uses the rarely employed AR capability of mobile devices.

The game involves flying a space ship around the player's physical environment overlaid with asteroids, space ships and other gameplay elements. It is good fun and certainly different from the rewards offered by other learning apps. It is easier to see this app motivating children to engage with learning content than it is with the far less developed rewards of competing apps.

Beyond its front-and-centre rewards, Space Academy AR is an extension of the online learning platform, Class Ace. This platform is a comprehensive education collection which, aside from covering the traditional maths and English language topics, also has a meditation section for grade 1 children. It is lovely to see an app thinking about mental wellbeing as well as academic progress.

What skills does it improve?

The Class Ace content covers maths, spelling, grammar, handwriting and meditation for children aged between about 6 and 10. The precise relevance to your child will depend upon which curriculum they follow. Class Ace reflects the US Common Core State Standards.

The CCSS might address topics in a different order or at different ages to your child's school but they'll mostly still be applicable at some point. Of course, if you are in a region that uses the CCSS, then this content is perfectly matched to your child's school experience.

What age is it appropriate for?

It is the Class Ace content that determines the age range at which the lesson designers have aimed Space Academy AR. The maths content covers grades 1 to 3, spelling grades 1 to 4, handwriting and grammar grades 1 and 2, and meditation grade 1. The AR game will be playable by all children in these grades. 

How will students benefit?

The lessons in this app are accompanied by interactive exercises which help children to practise what they have learned. These exercises provide feedback and corrections that will help children to progress. With the rewarding game inspiring them, children should be keen to engage with Space Academy AR.

How will teachers benefit?

It is straightforward to assign lessons to children and see how they have performed. Teachers know that children using this app have helpful assistance ready to support them when they are working on their tasks.

Multiple children can have separate accounts in the app. A teacher can monitor each of them from a different device making administration effortless. This app and the underpinning Class Ace section are undergoing continual improvements in this area.

There have been two noticeable new features added recently to the teacher tools of the web-based Class Ace. The first is the ability for teachers to set due dates for lessons that can be applied to individuals or student groups. The second lets teachers issue students with automatic login links. For teachers actively managing students' use of Class Ace, these are very useful tools to have.

How will parents benefit?

It is not easy to motivate children to use their learning apps, especially when there are fun games on the same device. As Space Academy AR has its own fun game built-in, parents should find it much easier to get their children to complete their learning tasks.

The teaching content is well structured to help parents who want to support their child as they learn a tricky subject. The diagrams, examples, and hints provide a firm basis for parents, who may not be particularly confident in some of the topics, to teach and help their children.

As the app covers both English and maths, Space Academy AR is a good-value purchase that covers a lot of bases for parents of young children.

What can Space Academy AR improve on?

Space Academy AR has very comprehensive coverage of the topics for the grades it covers - more so than many of its competitors. On the flip side, the content, though thorough, is often more static than its competitors. There are plenty of diagrams and speech synthesis to read the text out loud, but some animations in place of written directions could make the content clearer for young learners.

How much does Space Academy AR cost?

Each free download of Space Academy AR comes with a free seven-day trial that is fully unlocked and fully playable.

What is included with the free version vs. paid?

Beyond seven days, subscriptions of varying lengths extend the Space Academy AR app experience further. A year's subscription is almost 50% cheaper than covering the same time with monthly payments, so do think carefully about how you extend access to this app. Even if you don't subscribe, children can still access the app to some extent, with a limited number of questions per day.

Is Space Academy AR safe to use?

A relevant video follows many of the lessons when the learning content is accessed via the web on the Class Ace site, but this is not always first-party content, so it is viewed via YouTube with the advertisements and other distractions that this entails. In the Space Academy AR app, the videos are not shown and so present no issues. There are no social media facilities in the app nor any advertisements.

Overall rating of the app

Space Academy AR is unique in taking an established and good-quality educational resource and combining it with a rewarding game that does not feel like an afterthought. The chance to see asteroids floating around their bedrooms (and then shoot them) is a strong enticement for children to complete their learning tasks.

With a fully accessible, seven-day trial, parents and teachers have nothing to lose by testing the app out and seeing how their children respond to this innovative mix of learning and fun. Five stars.