Civic Mirror Free Trial (Invitation Required)

For the 2008/09 school year, Action-Ed is offering a limited number of Civic Mirror Free Trials on an invitation-basis only. The CM Free Trial includes enough functions and features for instructors to adequately experience the program and decide whether or not they want to continue with it.

The CM Free Trial gives a new instructor a country account with roughly 25% of the online features, and it comes with a Free Trial Guide (PDF download)that outlines how to run it in your classroom in 4-5 lessons. The CM Free Trial does not include the U.S. or Canadian Companion Manuals. These must be purchased separately and only work with a fully licensed Civic Mirror Country Account.  The CM Free Trial does, however, include an outstanding unit on “Human Choices and their Consequences.”  This educational unit provides students with an opportunity to use the program, but it also challenges students to reflect on the kinds of choices they made in the game and connect their experience and lessons learned to their lives and worlds.    

How Does the CM Free Trial Fit with the Fully Licensed Version?
What’s great is that the fully license version of The Civic Mirror picks up where the CM Free Trial leaves off, making it easy for instructors to continue using  the program in their courses.

How Do I Get A CM Free Trial Invitation?
To request a CM Free Trial invitation, place an order like you would for any of our other products and services. Action-Ed has set itself up to support a limited number of teachers through CM Free Trials. If there are invitations available, Action-Ed will be happy to support you through the experience.

Civic Mirror Country Account of 20 students

The Civic Mirror Country Account gives an instructor and up to 20 of his/her students a full-featured country scenario on civicmirror.com and an experience that they will never forget. Once purchased, an instructor will use a license key to register the full-featured country account, and then he or she will be off to the races. The program is like a high-powered, in-class field trip that runs itself for as long as the instructor wants it to. No paper work, no waivers, no signatures, and no travel arrangements.

CM Country Accounts last as long as your course lasts, and come with some great features that are generating lots of excitement:

• Simulated Country Scenario ~ This is the engine of The Civic Mirror that provides: every student with a citizen account giving them a fictitious family, starting cash, etc; the class with a live economy so students can buy, trade, and sell at any time; a government account that elected leaders use to set tax rates as well as update laws and court rulings; and an instructor’s admin account to advance the program at a pace that matches the course requirements.
• Wiki Technology ~ This enables instructor’s to build course content into the online program, and it allows students to co-develop the identity of their online country.  As well, each student is given their own wiki-page, a la MySpace.
• Discussion Forums ~ Allows instructors and students to talk about real world and Civic Mirror issues
• CM Mail ~ An in-class mailing system that allows students and instructors to privately communicate online – also used to send players updates on program activity.
• Live Country Chat ~ Allows students to talk as a nation in a live chat room, great for evening or weekend correspondence.
• CM Library ~ A repository of teaching/learning ideas, assignments and assessments that all subscribing CM instructors have access to upload and/or download.
• CM World ~ Allows participants to talk with all the other CM participants across the world, sharing their insights and lessons learned about law, government, economics, and citizenship
• CM and the Real World ~ A space where all CM participants can discuss real world political and economic issues