The ZoodleBug Story

Why I built ZoodleBug, what I believe about how children learn, and the classroom years behind every game.

The game is the content.

Why ZoodleBug is different

More than a worksheet with a prize at the end.

There’s a recipe you’ll find in a lot of learning apps, and I’ve used plenty of them in my own classroom: answer ten math problems, then earn a few minutes of a game that has nothing to do with math. It works, up to a point. But the learning becomes a toll booth, and the fun is somewhere down the road.

Kids are smart. Many of them rush the problems to get to the reward, and the reward itself doesn’t teach them much. I wanted ZoodleBug to work a different way.

The familiar recipe

  1. Solve the problems.
  2. Unlock the game.
  3. Play something unrelated.

A ZoodleBug game

  1. The problem is the move.
  2. Every move needs the skill.
  3. Get better at the skill, get better at the game.

In a ZoodleBug game, players don’t need the skill to earn the game. They need the skill to win it.

In Rock the Facts, you can’t claim the board without knowing your multiplication facts. In Foundry 6 7, you can’t cut the order right unless you can see what 0.75 of a sheet of metal really looks like. In Battle Clock, the battlefield is the clock face itself. The academic skill isn’t a gate in front of the game. It’s the controller in your hands.

That changes how a child plays. There’s less rushing and less guessing just to get it over with. Kids slow down, think, and try again, because getting smarter is how you get better.

Some ZoodleBug apps, like Hear Here!, ZoodleFlash and Cuatro, are built for focused practice, and that’s on purpose. Everyone needs a certain amount of knowledge at their instant disposal: math facts, spellings, sight words they don’t have to stop and think about. That kind of automaticity lowers the load on a child’s working memory and leaves room in the mind for more complex and creative work. What ZoodleBug stays away from is the “game” that leaves the content behind: shoot the falling monsters, hit the ball for a home run, then come back for the next question. In every ZoodleBug app, the content is in the game itself.

Standing on their shoulders

Thank you to the pioneers.

Before I say anything about what makes ZoodleBug different, I want to say thank you. I owe a real debt to the EdTech pioneers who came before me. Kahoot!, Gimkit, Blooket, Quizlet and so many others changed what a classroom could feel like. I used them for years to teach and engage my own students. I watched shy kids cheer, saw review days become the best days of the week, and learned from their creators just how much a great game can do for a room full of children. Teachers everywhere are better at their jobs because of these tools, and I’m one of those teachers.

I also want to be honest: the people who built these tools have far greater technical skills than I do. They created fast, reliable platforms that millions of classrooms count on every day. I’m a teacher who builds games, and I could not have built what they built.

ZoodleBug is my attempt to build on what they started. The pioneers showed all of us that kids will lean in when learning feels like play. Standing on their shoulders, I wanted to take one more step and ask a different question: what if the thinking itself were the game?

A different direction

Most quiz games are built around a question and a set of answers. That is exactly what makes them so wonderful for review: a teacher can turn any list of facts into a lively game in minutes, and the race, the points and the surprises happen around each question. ZoodleBug games are built the other way around. There’s no question waiting with answers to pick from. The game itself is the problem, and every move needs the skill. It’s a different job, not a better one, and the two work beautifully side by side.

Classic quiz gamesZoodleBug
On the screenA question and a few answersA situation and a decision
The thinkingRemember and recognize, fastPlan, reason, adapt
Where the game isAround the questionThe skill is the move
A wrong answerOn to the next questionA consequence you learn from
Best forQuick review and recall (DOK 1)Strategic thinking (DOK 3 and 4)

Measuring depth: Webb’s Depth of Knowledge

Teachers have a helpful tool for describing how hard a task makes students think: Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK), the framework used to build Common Core–aligned tests like Smarter Balanced. DOK doesn’t ask how difficult a question is. It asks how deeply a student has to think to answer it.

  1. DOK1

    Recall Where quiz games shine

    Remember a fact, a definition or a simple procedure. “What is 7 × 8?”

  2. DOK2

    Skills and concepts

    Use a skill, compare, classify or organize. “Round 347 to the nearest ten.”

  3. DOK3

    Strategic thinking Where ZoodleBug aims

    Reason, plan and choose between more than one path. “Which move sets up my next turn and blocks yours?”

  4. DOK4

    Extended thinking Where ZoodleBug aims

    Connect ideas and keep adjusting a plan as conditions change. “How do I finish this ten-job shift without running out of metal?”

Quick recall matters, and quiz games practice it brilliantly. A fact question with answers to choose from lives at DOK 1 almost by definition, because the answer is right there on the screen and the job is to recognize it. That’s not a weakness; it’s what those games are for. With ZoodleBug, I simply set out to aim for a different rung on the ladder.

Where I aim ZoodleBug: DOK 3 and 4

I design ZoodleBug games so they rarely ask a question with one right answer waiting in a list. Instead, they put students in a situation and ask them to decide:

  • DOK 3Rock the Facts. You can change only one factor per move, so every turn is a plan: which product gets my tokens in a row, and which one blocks my opponent? Working backward (“what times 6 makes 42?”) is division in disguise.
  • DOK 3Frac Jack. Five territories, five different fraction models. Students weigh which card to play where, add it in their heads to what’s already there, and risk overfilling and handing the territory to their opponent.
  • DOK 3Pebble. Every student places a number on their own number line, then the class compares, defends and discusses their reasoning.
  • DOK 3–4Foundry 6 7. A ten-job factory shift: students read orders as fractions, decimals or percents, plan their cuts, and manage their metal supply across the whole shift.
  • DOK 3–4ZoodleSwap and ZoodleBug Tournament. Students negotiate trades with classmates to build words and equations, or compete for a team across classrooms, adjusting their strategy as the game unfolds.

Fact fluency still matters to me. It’s one of my three mission pillars, and games like ZoodleFlash and Cuatro build it. I don’t see ZoodleBug as a replacement for the tools teachers already love. I see it as a companion to them: the quiz games help kids know their facts, and ZoodleBug gives them a place to put those facts to work. Knowing 7 × 8 without stopping to think is exactly what frees a student to think three moves ahead.

My mission

Three things every ZoodleBug game is built to do.

Every app on ZoodleBug starts with a question: what does a child need to see, to know cold, and to think through to truly own this skill? Those three questions are my mission.

See it: build understanding through mental imagery

Conceptual understanding and hyperlucidity

Real understanding lives in pictures in the mind. When a student can close their eyes and see a fraction, a number's place on a path, or a quarter past the hour, the idea stops being a rule to memorize and becomes something they can hold, turn over, and reason with. I call that moment hyperlucidity: an idea so vivid and clear in the mind's eye that it simply makes sense. I design ZoodleBug games to build those images on purpose, one representation at a time.

Frac Jack Foundry 6 7 Battle Clock ZoodlePeek 100 AlgeBug ZoodleBoard Pebble

Know it cold: free the mind with automaticity

Reduce cognitive load by increasing automaticity

A child who has to stop and count on their fingers for 7 × 8, or sound out every common word, has no room left to think about the actual problem. Working memory is small. When the basics become automatic, that space opens up for understanding, problem solving, and joy. ZoodleBug turns the repetition that builds fluency into play kids actually want to repeat, so facts, words, and patterns become instant. Even the music helps: the songs in ZoodleTunes put facts and rules into lyrics kids sing again and again, until they just know them.

Rock the Facts ZoodleFlash Cuatro Gold Rush Express ZoodlePop 100 Hear Here! DinoDecoder ZoodleTunes Pebble

Think it through: grow strategic, critical thinkers

Challenge students with complex situations

Knowing a skill and using it wisely are two different things. ZoodleBug games put students in rich, changing situations where there is more than one path, where an opponent pushes back, and where today's best move depends on what happens next. Students weigh options, plan ahead, and adjust, the same strategic thinking they will need long after the games are over.

Rock the Facts Foundry 6 7 Battle Clock Frac Jack ZoodlePop 100 DoubleBug ZoodleSwap ZoodleBug Tournament Pebble

The teacher behind the games

Hi, I’m Tim Bedley.

I designed and tested every ZoodleBug game. Before that, I spent more than thirty-five years in classrooms as a teacher, a trainer of teachers, a tutor and a songwriter, always looking for ways to turn what students need to learn into a game.

35+years working with students
2013Riverside County Teacher of the Year
2007began training teachers
🎸founder and lyricist of Rockin' the Standards

A classroom career

I stepped into my first classroom in 1988 at R.H. Dana Elementary in Southern California. Over the next three decades I taught at Menifee Valley Middle School, Pauba Valley Elementary, Withrow Elementary, and Wildomar Elementary, where I taught gifted (GATE) fourth and fifth graders, and finally Earl Warren Elementary, my last classroom, from 2013 until I retired in 2024. I taught every subject: reading, writing, math, science, history and music, and I always wanted a classroom where kids were up, thinking, talking, and competing to learn.

In 2013 I was named Riverside County Teacher of the Year.

A teacher of teachers

Since 2007, I’ve also trained other teachers, and some of my lessons on student engagement were filmed for other teachers to watch. With my brother Scott Bedley, himself an Orange County Teacher of the Year, I co-hosted The Bedley Bros from 2013 to 2021, an education podcast where we talked with teachers, Teachers of the Year, and innovators from across the country about what's current and what actually works.

Rockin' the Standards

Long before ZoodleBug, I was looking for ways to make hard-to-remember content stick. I founded Rockin' the Standards, an "edutaining" rock band, and wrote the lyrics for its songs, each one about a standard my students struggled to retain. Those same songs live on today in ZoodleTunes, right here on ZoodleBug.

A tutor and a gamifier

One student at a time, I’ve tutored children through the exact moments where learning gets stuck: the fraction that won't make sense, the facts that won't stick, the word that won't sound right. And again and again, the thing that unstuck them was a game: not a game after the work, but a game that was the work. Years of turning lessons into challenges, contests, and puzzles taught me what makes kids lean in, and what makes them tune out.

“I am obsessed with providing tools for students and teachers that engage kids in deep thought, focused on the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.”

Tim Bedley, creator of ZoodleBug

Retirement? Not exactly.

When I retired from public school teaching at Earl Warren Elementary in 2024, I didn’t slow down. I finally had the time to build the games I had been designing in my head for decades. ZoodleBug is the result: a passion project built by a teacher, for teachers and their students, with every game shaped by what thirty-plus years in real classrooms taught me about how children learn.

The journey

From one classroom to ZoodleBug.

  1. 1988

    I begin teaching at R.H. Dana Elementary.

  2. 1990s – 2013

    I teach in classrooms across Southern California: middle school, elementary, and gifted (GATE) fourth and fifth grade.

  3. 2007

    I begin training teachers in student engagement.

  4. Rockin' the Standards

    I write rock songs that teach the standards students find hardest to remember.

  5. 2013

    I’m named Riverside County Teacher of the Year.

  6. 2013 – 2021

    My brother Scott and I co-host The Bedley Bros, an education podcast, talking with teachers across the country.

  7. 2013 – 2024

    I teach at Earl Warren Elementary, my last classroom, and retire in 2024.

  8. Today

    In retirement, I build ZoodleBug: games where the game is the content.

Why it matters

Deep thinking, disguised as the best part of the day.

I built ZoodleBug for the child who has decided they're "bad at math," the reader who needs one more spark, the student who's bored because nothing has challenged them yet, and the teacher who wants every minute of screen time to count. When the game is the content, every win is real learning.

Explore the games For educators