Classroom, Inc. is a not-for-profit outfit that provides workplace-themed educational software aimed at mostly inner-city middle and high school students. I helped concept the storylines and activities, and developed characters and dialogue for four of their simulation.
Kids were placed into real world roles, such as a new associate at a law firm, the manager of a technology company, or the editor at a city newspaper. As students were engaged by story situations, interacting with a large cast of characters, they took part in activities appropriate to each workplace: preparing a legal brief, designing a Web site, laying out column space on a front page. And in the process learned and reinforced their math and reading skills.

While the multi-episode stories and student activities were very deep, the simulations themselves were not particularly rich in art or interactivity. But this was a strategic choice: many of the schools had low end computers and could not run richer simulations. The simpler approach also allowed students to focus on the events and lessons, rather than be distracted by too much of a game-like environment.