Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice
Product by BradField Narrative Designs
Facts checked: Not yet checked
Our take (not a Learning Standard rating). This label applies to learning-science judgments throughout this overview.
Our take (not a Learning Standard rating)
While The Learning Standard has not yet evaluated this specific curriculum's efficacy data, its design effectively uses narrative-based immersive learning to build situational interest in cross-curricular humanities topics. However, it requires significant educator scaffolding to manage cognitive load and ensure students actually master the underlying academic concepts.
Pros
- Anchors abstract humanities and tech concepts within a continuous narrative to improve contextual memory retention.
- Provides educators with a flexible, modular framework to adapt lessons to specific classroom pacing and student needs.
- Integrates multimedia elements to support dual-coding theory by pairing text with visual and interactive problem-solving.
- Promotes active learning through hands-on, cross-curricular projects rather than passive consumption of material.
Cons
- Requires substantial teacher intervention to guide students through complex immersive environments without causing cognitive overload.
- Lacks built-in automated feedback mechanisms for immediate error correction during independent student work.
- Relies heavily on student self-regulation, which may frustrate middle schoolers who lack strong executive function skills.
What Do We Know About Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice?
Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice functions as an effective supplementary curriculum for educators teaching humanities and tech, though its ultimate impact depends heavily on how a teacher scaffolds the experience for your child. Because it is a curriculum guide rather than a standalone adaptive app, it does not drill isolated skills or provide immediate automated feedback. Instead, it immerses your child in a digital, interactive story focused on themes of place and identity. This narrative structure leverages situational interest, which learning science shows can boost sustained attention during complex problem-solving. Your child will engage in cross-curricular projects that require them to read, analyze, and build digital artifacts. However, because immersive, game-based environments present high volumes of novel information, they can easily cause cognitive overload. Your child will need active guidance from an adult to synthesize the narrative elements into concrete academic takeaways. It is not a tool you can simply hand to your child for independent practice; it requires an educator to structure the lessons, pace the episodes, and assess the resulting projects. The Learning Standard has not yet completed a formal evaluation of this specific guide's efficacy data.
How Does Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice Work?
Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice utilizes a narrative-driven, immersive learning approach that blends digital storytelling with project-based, cross-curricular tasks. The curriculum revolves around specific episodes of the Inanimate Alice story, where students follow the protagonist through interactive text, sound, and visual media. Educators use the guide to select modules that align with their goals in humanities, applied science, or career and technical education. After experiencing a story segment, students step out of the narrative to complete hands-on assignments tied to the themes they just encountered. These tasks often require them to design, write, or analyze elements related to the protagonist's journey. The platform itself does not generate personalized learning paths or track mastery through automated quizzes. Instead, it provides a thematic framework and prompt structure. The teacher acts as the primary facilitator, delivering direct instruction, managing group work, and assessing the final digital or written artifacts produced by the students.
Strengths and tradeoffs of Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice
The biggest strength of Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice is its ability to anchor cross-curricular learning within a compelling narrative, while its biggest weakness is the lack of embedded formative assessments to check for student understanding. By embedding academic concepts inside a digital story, the curriculum leverages contextualized learning. This helps students build mental schemas more easily than they would with isolated facts, as the narrative structure provides a logical framework for retaining new information. The integration of text, imagery, and sound also supports dual-coding theory, allowing students to process information through multiple channels simultaneously. However, immersive environments are notoriously prone to causing cognitive overload. Because the platform lacks built-in retrieval practice or automated feedback loops, students can easily lose track of the core learning objectives amid the interactive storytelling. Educators must proactively design and insert their own worked examples and comprehension checks. Without this teacher-led scaffolding, middle schoolers may engage with the game elements but fail to transfer those experiences into measurable humanities or STEM skills.
Who Might Benefit From Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice?
Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice is best for middle school educators seeking a highly interactive, narrative framework to teach project-based humanities and digital literacy. It targets students in grades five through eight who thrive on story-driven, immersive experiences rather than traditional textbook instruction. Because the curriculum relies heavily on thematic exploration of identity and place, it fits well into classrooms that emphasize cross-curricular learning and media literacy. It is not suited for parents looking for an independent tutoring app or students who need structured, repetitive drill practice to master foundational skills.
Data Transparency
Does Not Meet Data Transparency Standard
Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice does not meet our data transparency standard. Its privacy policy does not document basic protections, including a commitment against targeted advertising, limits on sharing children's data and contractual limits on service providers.
6 of 35 checks passed
Evaluated September 2026
Privacy Policy →Level 1 · Basic protections
Does not sell data or target ads at students, limits sharing, and lets parents see and delete their child's data.
Not documented: a commitment against targeted advertising, limits on sharing children's data, contractual limits on service providers, a COPPA or FERPA commitment, parents' right to see their child's data, parents' right to delete their child's data
Level 2 · Parent control (meets the standard)
Families can get their data out, know who processes it, and know how long it is kept.
Not documented: data export, a data retention timeline, self-service deletion
Level 3 · Direct data access
Families or schools can pull their own data through an API, in a stated format.
Not documented: an API for retrieving their own data, a named export format
View all 35 checks
Parent Access0/8
Does the policy mention parents specifically?
The policy does not mention parents.
Can parents view their child's data?
The policy gives no parent-specific right to view a child's data.
Can parents modify their child's data?
The policy gives no parent-specific right to change a child's data.
Can parents delete their child's account?
The policy gives no parent-specific right to delete a child's data or account.
Is there a dedicated Children's Privacy section?
The policy has no section on children's privacy.
Does it reference COPPA compliance?
The policy does not mention COPPA.
Does it reference FERPA compliance?
The policy does not mention FERPA.
Is parental consent required for child accounts?
The policy does not address parental consent.
Data Portability1/5
Can users access their personal data?
“You are entitled to view, amend, or delete the personal information that we hold about you. Email your request to BradField Narrative Designs Inc. at [info@inanimatealice.com](mailto:info@inanimatealice.com)”
Can users download/export their data?
The policy covers viewing, changing and deleting data but not downloading or exporting it.
Is there a self-service data access tool?
The policy says access requests are made by email, not through a self-service tool.
Is a specific data format mentioned for export?
The policy does not name any export format.
Is there an API for data access?
The policy does not mention an API for data access.
Data Minimization1/6
Is data collection itemized?
“If you contact us through our online contact form we request your name and email address. This information is only used to communicate with you directly about your request, and your details are not added to any mailing list or passed on to any other companies.”
Can the app be used without a real name?
The policy says it collects names through the contact form, and it does not say the app works without a real name.
Can the app be used without an email?
The policy says it collects email addresses through the contact form, and it does not say the app works without an email.
Does it state collection is limited to what is necessary?
The policy does not say collection is limited to what is necessary.
Is IP address anonymized or truncated?
The policy calls its analytics tracking data "anonymised" but does not say IP addresses are anonymized or truncated.
Is location tracking explicitly excluded?
The policy does not address location tracking.
Third-Party Protection3/7
Does it explicitly state no selling of data?
“We do not pass on or sell user data to any other company for marketing purposes.”
Are third-party providers named?
“The newsletter service is provided by [MailChimp](http://mailchimp.com/).”
Are providers contractually restricted?
The policy does not describe any contract terms that restrict providers.
No-targeted-advertising commitment?
The policy makes no commitment against targeted advertising, and the site's cookie settings list advertisement cookies.
Is AI/ML data sharing addressed?
The policy does not address AI or machine learning.
Child-specific sharing restriction?
The policy has no sharing restriction specific to children.
Cookies/tracking limited or opt-out?
“You may prefer to disable cookies on this website and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser.”
Deletion & Retention1/5
Can users delete their account?
“You are entitled to view, amend, or delete the personal information that we hold about you. Email your request to BradField Narrative Designs Inc. at [info@inanimatealice.com](mailto:info@inanimatealice.com)”
Self-service deletion mechanism?
The policy says deletion requires an email request, not a self-service tool.
Specific data retention timeline?
The policy gives no retention period for personal data; the only durations listed are for cookies.
Auto-deletion of inactive accounts?
The policy does not address automatic deletion of inactive accounts.
Post-deletion handling described?
The policy does not say what happens to data after deletion.
Advertising0/4
Advertising model explicitly disclosed?
The policy does not disclose an advertising model.
Free from third-party advertisements?
The policy does not say the product is free of third-party ads.
Children excluded from ad targeting?
The policy does not address ad targeting of children.
Ad-free option available?
The policy does not mention an ad-free option or say the product has no ads.
What This Means
The policy review did not meet our data transparency standard. The checks above show the documented findings and unknowns. A missing statement does not establish how the app handles data in practice.
About this evaluation: Based on automated analysis of Privacy Policy against 35 policy-disclosure questions, including questions adapted from the Common Sense Privacy Program's published evaluation questions. TLS is not affiliated with Common Sense Media, and this is not a Common Sense rating. Quoted text is copied from the policy; unquoted notes are our summary. Results describe what the policy documents, not the company's actual practices. Privacy policies can change: this review reflects the version we analyzed and does not determine legal compliance.
Sources and review method
TLS combines product information and editorial analysis to explain how Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice works, its tradeoffs, and the questions to ask before choosing it. Product features, an instructional rationale and evidence of learning outcomes are different kinds of information.
Formal Learning Standard assessment: not yet completed. Data Transparency findings are reported separately and do not establish learning effectiveness. Read our methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions About Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice
Is Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice free?
No, Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice is not free. It costs $99.00 per course or repository for a single-user, one-year renewable license. There are discount structures available for bulk school or district purchases.
Is Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice good for middle schoolers?
Yes, the curriculum is specifically designed for students in grades six through eight, though it can be adapted for fifth grade. The themes of identity and place align developmentally with early adolescence, and the interactive format engages students who may resist traditional instructional methods.
What does Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice teach?
It teaches a blend of humanities, applied science, and career and technical education skills. Students analyze literary themes, explore geography, and build digital literacy through hands-on, project-based tasks tied directly to the interactive narrative episodes.
How does Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice compare to traditional textbooks?
Unlike static textbooks, this program relies on game-based immersive learning and multimodal storytelling. While textbooks provide structured, explicit instruction, this curriculum requires students to deduce concepts through narrative exploration, which demands more active facilitation from the teacher to prevent knowledge gaps.
Has The Learning Standard formally evaluated Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice?
Not yet. Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice is currently pending evaluation. Once data is gathered and analyzed, we will update our rating based on the rigorous, science-backed criteria outlined in our methodology.
Has The Learning Standard evaluated Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice?
TLS has not yet completed a Learning Standard evaluation of how well Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice teaches. Its privacy policy has been reviewed for Data Transparency and does not yet document the basic protections (Level 1).
Is Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice COPPA compliant?
A COPPA reference was not found in the reviewed privacy policy. This does not determine whether the app complies with COPPA. Policy review note: The policy does not mention COPPA.
Is Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice FERPA compliant?
A FERPA reference was not found in the reviewed privacy policy. This does not determine whether the app complies with FERPA. Policy review note: The policy does not mention FERPA.
Does Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice have a children's privacy policy?
No dedicated children's privacy section was found in the reviewed policy. Policy review note: The policy has no section on children's privacy.
Does Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice sell student data?
The reviewed policy states that the app does not sell data. This is a policy statement; actual data practices were not verified. Policy review note: The policy says the company does not sell user data to other companies for marketing purposes (the statement is limited to marketing).
Can you delete your data from Leveling-Up with Inanimate Alice?
The reviewed privacy policy describes account deletion. We have not tested the deletion process. Policy review note: Users can ask by email to have their personal information deleted.
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- Pricing
- $99.00 per course/repository for single user access, 1-year renewable. Discount structure for school/district applies.
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- 5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade
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