Monthly Update - April 2021

I don't know about where you are, but in my small corner of the country, Spring is here. ☔️☀️🌱

A lot happened in March — I can't wait to share!

Appreciation

We typically like to use this section to send out an appreciation for folx who are making an impact in Education. This month, I want to do something a little different.

Our appreciation for April is for Healthcare workers.

As part of our appreciation this month, we're donating $5,000 to Direct Relief.

Our donation to Direct Relief reflects a commitment to supporting worldwide medical efforts battling the COVID pandemic and our support of the incredible work and dedication of frontline Healthcare workers.

Because transparency is important to us, you can find a public, running list of all of the organizations Gimkit has contributed to here.

If you have a healthcare worker in your life, give them a little extra love and appreciation from us. And, from all of us here at Gimkit to healthcare workers everywhere, we appreciate you and all you do! 💜

Community and Product Update

Ink Webinar with Leslie Fisher

The first Friday in March, Josh and I did a webinar on Gimkit Ink with Leslie Fisher!

Ink is new and different and can be a little intimidating if you haven't used it before.

This webinar was a good reminder of that and how much fun it is to slow down and interact with Educators in an open, collaborative space.

In addition to showing off Ink, we also played a Draw That even before we tested it internally. So, we had over 70 people play an unreleased, untested mode with us and Leslie.

It was a BLAST and Leslie's openness to trying nutty ideas like that one are one reason we love her!

If you're not already tuned into Leslie, connect with her on Twitter and on her site!

New Mode - Draw That

Speaking of Draw That, we released it as a new, limited mode on March 15th!

It's been a long year and we wanted to give students and teachers something that had some educational value, of course, but that had its roots in fun, engagement, and community-building. Something that could take off some of the pressure of this difficult school year.

While you use Kits to start a Draw That game, its different than any other mode we've released so far. It's like Pictionary, but in Gimkit! One student draws a term while the rest of the class tries to guess what it is.

We weren't sure what the reaction to Draw That would be since it is so different. But the feedback from teachers and students was overwhelmingly positive!

Of course, there were some tweaks to be made. Thanks to suggestions from students and teachers, we made several updates and improvements in the first few days.

On day one, Josh added in a quick-picker option that helped make it easier to get terms loaded in while setting up a Draw That game, especially for world language teachers.

A few days later we made several more quality of life improvements, including the ability to hide our symbol selector for WL teachers working with languages like Russian and Chinese, and an option to not reveal the number of letters in the term being guessed.

Oh, and we also opened our first art gallery!

We've spent WAY too much time browsing the Draw That Student Art Gallery - thank you all for publishing so much amazing, funny, delightful work!

If you haven't tried Draw That yet, you can learn more on our blog here and Richard Colosi made this incredible explainer video! And thanks to everyone who has tried out Draw That so far and shared student experiences and drawings; we've loved seeing it all! 😊

Ink - Student Commenting

I'm really excited about this update!

We initially started building Ink as a writing tool, but it became clear in the early release phase that Ink was more about student publishing. It is about giving students a voice.

And as more educators and students started using Ink, we learned something big was missing: There wasn't an opportunity for ongoing student discussion

With this update, student posts become sparks that can ignite the imagination of your class, leading to deeper conversations on the initial topic. All student-led.

We can't wait for you and your students to try out Ink, especially with the added layer of student conversation and all the possibilities it can open up!

Learn more about student commenting in Ink here!

That’s it!

That’s what we’ve got for this month. We’re looking forward to an exciting April with you all!

PRESS RELEASE

GIMKIT LAUNCHES FIRST EDTECH ICO

Seattle-Based Ed Tech Startup Gimkit Debuts Its Own Blockchain-Based Digital Currency, GimCoin (₲).

Seattle, WA., April 1, 2021 — Gimkit today announced the launch of GimCoin(₲), the newest and most exciting digital currency, in a groundbreaking Initial Coin Offering (ICO).

Josh Feinsilber, Gimkit's founder, who is also in the process of adding laser eyes to his Twitter profile pic, said, “Dogecoin. You know? And also NFTs. I mean, Robinhood and BitCoin. Gamestop, I mean this is the new wave. The connected generation. It's all happening, right? And I was just like, 'we can't NOT.' You know?”

Built on the famous and intriguing blockchain technology you've read about in all those headlines you skim, GimCoin is now available for purchase, trading, hoarding, and speculating on in massive, massive excess.

This full-scale, integrated digital currency allows Gimkit to more fully explore verticals in the EdTech industry. Innovation. Synchrony. Innovation.

GimCoin is remarkable not only because of its singular foresight into where the world of digital currency is heading, but because no EdTech company has yet endeavored something so bold, daring, and forward-thinking. Gimkit, by launching GimCoin, has once again proven itself as a leader and innovator in its space.

GimCoin is available now in Gimkit Live. Start a game to earn GimCoin and participate in the future of EdTech.

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Student Commenting in Ink!

Educators have been asking for student commenting since Ink was in early release. We're excited to say it's out now as our first major update to Gimkit Ink!

Now, when a student publishes a post in Ink, other students can leave comments. This will make Ink a place where your students can not only publish, but have ongoing conversations!

Posts in Ink were initially just single-direction interactions. Students shared an idea, other students read it. Other than comments left by the teacher, the idea sort of stalled there.

Now, students can keep the conversation going by adding comments to posts that capture their imagination. And the author, or other students, can continue the conversation from there!

Here's a quick run-down of how student commenting works in Ink!

Allowing Comments

When you create an Ink project, you can now decide if you want to allow student comments or not. You can also turn on an option that hides student comments by default.

Even if you allow comments and don't hide them by default, you can change the visibility of any student comment later. More on that below!

Student Side

For students, when they view a post in Ink, they'll see the option to leave a comment.

They just type their comment and click "Send" to add the comment to the post.

Once submitted, student comments are immediately visible for everybody to see! Turn on 'Hide Comments By Default' if you want to moderate the comments first.

Comments Become Conversations

The author, as well any other student who wants to join in, can add a comment to the conversation!

This is where things can get really exciting!

Anyone who has access to read the post can comment. So, as more students read the post and share their thoughts, the discussion will keep growing and growing.

Teacher Controls & Safety

As the owner of the project, you have full control of whether there are comments at all and if they'll be hidden by default. On top of that, you can hide inappropriate or offensive comments easily, from right inside the post.

Ink automatically attempts to hide comments with inappropriate language. But if anything gets through, you have complete control to hide student comments on a case-by-case basis.

Here are the basics for managing comments in Ink, both the comments you leave as the teacher and those posted by students.

You can still leave comments on posts, just as you could before.

But now, once you share your comment as the teacher, you can update its visibility.

If you'd like, you can set your comments so only you can see them, only the author can see them, or so they're visible to everyone.

You can also adjust the visibility of any student comment anytime.

If you see an inappropriate comment, hide it by clicking the comment's visibility tag.

Once you click the privacy tag for a comment, you'll see options to set the comment's visibility, just like you did for your own comment.

As soon as you set a student's comment to "Hidden," it will be removed for everyone except you.

Let the Conversation Begin!

That's everything you need to know about student commenting!

Ideas are meant to be shared and discussed and debated. We hope this update leads to deeper conversations in Ink and deeper connections between you and your students.

Let us know what you think!

Draw That!

Welcome to Draw That! With this mode, we take your Kit and transform it into something entirely different: a drawing game!

Students don't answer questions in this mode. Instead, students draw terms from your Kit while everybody else tries to guess what it is. Like Pictionary, but with your content, and for your entire class!

While this post will help explain Draw That, the best way to understand this mode is to try it with your class. After a round or two, you'll get the hang of it!

Setup

Since students draw terms in this mode, we'll need to create that list before we do anything else. Good news — we do this for you automatically by looking at the content inside your Kit.

If you want to manage your list of terms directly, click the Manage Terms button.

This will bring up a screen where you can manage all the terms.

Add new terms manually, or from content in your Kit. Remove some terms. Export/import your list for future use. It's all here.

Feel free to configure the other options such as Round Duration, Term Reveal, Guess Feed, and Speed Bonus. We'll go over what those mean in just a bit!

Start Of The Round

This mode is run in rounds. Before each round, you'll decide who gets to be the drawer.

If you want to shake things up, click the Random Student button and a student will be selected at random.

Once a drawer is selected, on their screen, they'll get to pick which term they want to draw.

Once they select a term, the round begins!

During The Round

The round has begun, which means the drawer gets drawing!

These are quick drawings, not museum-art pieces. So we just have some simple options for the student like the brush color, size, and tools to undo and clear.

For all your other students, they'll see the drawing in realtime on their screen...but they won't be told what it is. It's up to them to guess what the drawer is drawing!

Foreign language teachers, if the term a student is drawing contains accents, quick helper buttons will be available for them.

Up on your screen, you'll see the drawing too, plus a feed of what students are guessing on the right side. You can disable this feed when setting up your game.

Even with the best artist as the drawer, it can be difficult to actually guess what a student is drawing without some help.

Slowly over time, letters in the term will be revealed to give them some clues as to what's being drawn.

In game options, you can configure how letters are revealed. You can choose no letters revealed, 50% of them, 75% of them, just the first and last, it's up to you!

Also, one last thing — there's a timer for each round! It's up for the drawer to draw and the guesser to guess before time runs out! The duration of a round is another option you can modify when setting up the game.

Round Over

When the round ends, the term is revealed for everybody to see. And then...points are are awarded to students!

Guessers are granted points for guessing correctly, if their first guess was an accurate one, and for guessing faster.

You can disable the extra points for guessing faster while setting up your game.

The drawer is awarded points based off how many guessers guessed their drawings correctly!

On your end, you can choose to end the game, or start a new round.

You get to decide this at the end of each round, which means you get full control over how long a game of Draw That lasts.

End Of The Game

When the game ends, the winner is the student that got the most points across all rounds.

Also, see that little View Drawings button on the top right? Click that and you and your students can look over the drawings across all rounds.

You can even right click and save those drawings to your desktop!

Safety

I graduated from high school a little less than two years ago. I know what can happen when you give a student the ability to draw anything and have that show up for everybody.

I want this mode to be a fun and safe time for every student. We have some safety features already built into Gimkit, but we also built a few more specific to this mode.

Classes

Classes aren't required for this mode, but is a great part of Gimkit generally, and specifically for this mode! Classes forces students to use their real name and makes it impossible for students outside your class to join your games.

If you use classes, you'll be able to know who every student is and can ensure that nobody outside your class joins your game. You can read here to learn how to create a class.

Pick Your Drawer

Remember, as the teacher you always get to decide who the drawer is for each round. With that, you can decide to only let students who you trust draw.

Clear Canvas

If a student begins to draw something inappropriate, you always have a manual override. On the bottom left of your screen, you'll have a Clear Canvas button.

Click this button at anytime and everything in the drawing will be erased for all students. Right below that, you can click the button to end the round early, so that the student cannot continue to draw.

Clean Guesses

When students guess what a drawing is, that guess shows up on your screen and the screens of other students.

However, if that guess contains something that our filter deems inappropriate, that guess won't show up for anybody. Additionally, all future guesses from that student will be hidden. One strike and you're out!

If you want to take things one step further, you can fully disable the Guess Feed in game options.

Have fun!

That's everything you need to know about Draw That!

We hope this mode brings some great learning and great laughs. Draw That isn't a Forever Mode yet, so it will leave sometime in the future. We'll give you a heads up though, so you know it's coming.

Have fun and please share your student's amazing art creations with us!

Monthly Update - March 2021

Whoops! I blinked and several months went by...

Our last monthly update was November 2020, published on Nov 1. A lot happened over the last four months, let's dive in!

Appreciation

This month's appreciation goes to Scott Hebert AKA Master Heebs, @MrHebertPE!

Scott helped us develop Trust No One, specifically providing tons of ideas, suggestions, and feedback while Josh was building the mode. We asked Scott for a little bit of help, and he gave us A LOT. 🙌

Scott, thank you so much for helping make Trust No One such a special, engaging mode!

2020 Recap

Sure, we're two months into 2021. But, as the saying goes, better late than never!

Here are some of our 2020 highlights:

🙌 🧙🏼‍♀️ Brought on Rebecca to help with customer support part-time and hired Pharlain, our first-ever FT customer support person.

💜 Thanks to your incredible support, we kept Gimkit small, independent, and ad-free; 4 FT employees, 1 PT employee; Josh & Jeff own 100% of the company.

🎒 Launched Gimkit Groups, which made it inexpensive and easy for schools to purchase Gimkit Pro for tens of thousands of teachers.

💻 Significant improvements to Assignments and Classes, making it easier to teach remotely, as well as general improvements and additions to Gimkit to support remote learning, including our Remote Learning Guide.

🛠 🎓 MAJOR progress in improving reliability and preventing downtime; Gimkit is more reliable and stable than ever, thanks to Josh and Fadi's hard work over 2020; These improvements, in part, allowed over 30 million educators and students to use Gimkit in 2020

⚠️ Moderated over 1,000 inappropriate or misleading Kits with our flagging system.

🖋 With the help of thousands of teachers who used it in early release, we developed our second product, Ink.

🌋🕵️‍♀️ Released two new modes: Floor is Lava and Trust No One.

🏖 Consistent smaller quality of life improvements for teachers and students, including updating game mechanics.

👊🙈📉🧟‍♀️🤑🌋🕵️‍♀️ Introduced Forever Modes, which allows teachers to use any mode they like, any time.

2020 was a difficult year for everyone - educators, students, and parents included. It means a lot to us that we could, in some small way, have a positive impact on the difficult educational experience that was school in 2020. Thank you for all of your support, which makes it possible for us to work on Gimkit.

Jan & Feb 2021 Community and Product Update

Here are a few highlights from a product and community perspective, covering November, December, January, and February:

Trust No One

One of two new modes we released in 2020, Trust No One has been a really special mode for us.

While we have several beloved modes, this one is different in the way that it sparks class conversation and collaboration. It's based on Among Us, a game we love playing, and has brought classrooms, students, and teachers closer together in the midst of challenging remote learning, hybrid learning, and in-person learning environments.

The level of engagement teachers are sharing with us and how this mode has helped all students get involved, have been wonderful to see. Trust No One has been our most popular mode so far and we're so happy it's created so many conversations, connections, and fun memories!

Forever Modes

We launched our first limited-time game mode almost year two years ago. Since then, and with every new mode release, we've heard how you all wished modes stayed around longer, or even forever!

In early December, we introduced Forever Modes to Gimkit Live.

We designed Forever Modes on how movie releases work, or how they used to work before the pandemic. New movies come to theaters, stay for a limited time, and leave. A little while later, they come back out on DVD.

That's how we now treat mode releases. They're available for a brief period of time at launch, gone for a bit, and then back forever!

As of right now, here are the Forever Modes that you can play with your students anytime:

• Trust No One

• Floor is Lava

• Infinity Mode

• Boss Battle

• Humans vs. Zombies

• Super Rich Mode

• Hidden Mode

• Drained Mode

So far, students and teachers seem to be enjoying their newfound freedom to play any Gimkit Live game mode whenever they want. It's been so much fun seeing classes play Humans vs. Zombies on a random Wednesday in January and ongoing rivalries with Boss Battle!

Improved Search

Earlier this month, Fadi finished a project that drastically improved Kit search in Gimkit Live. You can now filter and sort your searches. We also provide improved results more quickly. This project was on our to-do list for a while and it felt GREAT to cross it off!

Support <> Support

Because of the teacher, school, and district support we've received in the form of individual and group memberships, we've been able to improve our customer support steadily over the past several months.

For most of 2020, if you emailed Gimkit, Jeff responded, usually within 24-48 hours. As things picked up with the new school year in August, September, and October, those lead times got longer, Jeff put in more hours to keep up, and he wasn't always providing the best support.

It's exciting to say that we now get back to most emails in 24 hours or less. We're keeping our posted response time at 2 business days because things can always change and get busier. But it feels great to be able to respond to support messages faster and to provide a more consistent quality of support when we do.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank Pharlain and Rebecca for providing wonderful support to all of the educators, parents, and students who email us, and also thank you all for supporting us so that we can support you (that's a lot of support...)! 💜

Ink Update

Launching a new product has been scary, challenging, and time-consuming. But Gimkit Ink has been out for about four weeks, so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive!

When we started working on Ink, our focus was on helping students fall in love with writing. That's still our goal and we believe Ink helps educators accomplish just that.

However, while we were building and launching Ink, we were so focused on writing, that we almost missed its true power: publishing.

Ink gives students the ability to easily publish their thoughts in ways they're comfortable with. Because Ink allows students to fully control who sees their writing and whether their name is visible, it also gives them permission to express their thoughts and feelings honestly and authentically.

As we got closer to launching Ink and publishing became more clearly the center of Ink, we started re-prioritized our planned updates and improvements to Ink.

We just pushed an update that added Privacy Tags to Ink.

These tags give students and teachers an increased sense of control, visibility, and assurance.

Fadi is also working on the most widely-requested Ink improvement: Student Commenting. Since this one isn't out yet, we'll have more information on it in next month's update!

If you haven't tried Ink out yet, it's available from your Gimkit Hub when you log in. And the best part? It’s also included in your Gimkit Pro membership!

Company update

Back in January, Josh wrote a blog post detailing how Gimkit is now a carbon-negative company.

This one is important to us because of how we feel about the state of climate change and the environment.

In addition to offsetting our carbon footprint retroactively and committing to keeping it offset, we also made a donation to Renewable World and will continue looking for ways to invest in and contribute to those working on sustainable energy products around the globe.

What's on Deck?

• Ink - student commenting

• New mode - something COMPLETELY different…

Carbon negative now, before, and beyond

Today, Gimkit is carbon negative for our entire history and moving forward.

The threat of global warming to humans, animals, nature, and the planet is real. We all want today's and tomorrow's students to grow up on a healthier planet.

I'm nowhere near understanding all of the complexities of working to make a healthier planet. What I do understand though? This is a team effort. Individual actions may not appear like a big deal, but together, they can add up for big change.

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Our servers which allow you to access Gimkit, the computers we work on, the planes we go on for conferences — these all spew carbon in the atmosphere, heating up our planet.

While fewer carbon emissions in the first place is always better, there are many parts of our business where it's physically impossible to not release any emissions.

This is where carbon offsets come in, which we're purchasing to offset all our emissions and then some. Carbon offsets don't erase our emissions, they simply prevent someone else's.

As an example, a dairy farm can install a machine which captures and destroys methane that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. These machines, they're expensive — that's where carbon offsets come in. Carbon offsets help pay for projects like those, so we can reduce emissions in other areas.

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Calculating our exact carbon footprint is...tricky.

We used the help of another company who is kind enough to share their emissions broken down by category. This company is similar to ours — works remotely, builds software.

Using their numbers, we were able to roughly determine how much we need to offset. But we wanted to be super conservative. From what we know, we're offsetting at least 2x the carbon we emit — therefore making Gimkit carbon negative.

For every tCO2e we emit, we offset roughly two (or more).

And while we'll offset all of our future emissions, we've also offset all emissions since the beginning of Gimkit — when I was ending my sophomore year of high school.

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Offsets are great, but we want to do even more. Throughout this year, we'll be making contributions to organizations and projects that are helping fight climate change.

We're still discussing the best projects/places/organizations to contribute to — if you're aware of any, I'd love to hear about them!

Gimkit is now a carbon negative company. It's a great start, but there's still a lot more to be done.

Trust No One

Welcome to Trust No One!

Trust No One is our most unique game mode — there's no upgrades, powerups, cash, or leaderboards. This is a whole new style of gameplay!

The objective of this mode is simple: locate the impostors and vote them off the ship.

If you or your students have ever played Among Us, this mode is similar!

Gameplay

When the game begins, students learn which role they have: Crewmate or Impostor.

The core of this mode is the same as all other game modes: students answer questions at their own pace. However, instead of earning cash, students earn power ⚡️.

The more power students acquire, the more they can help their side win!

Crewmates: run investigations and find the impostors.

Crewmates can use their power to run investigations on other players. Investigations help crewmates identify other crewmates. With enough investigations, you can rule out enough people to eventually find the impostors!

Running an Investigation

When a crewmate runs an investigation, they decide who they get to investigate. If a crewmate investigates an impostor, they'll get an Inconclusive result back. If a crewmate investigates another crewmate, they'll sometimes get an All Clear result, other times an Inconclusive result.

Private and Public Investigations

Crewmates can run two different kinds of investigations: private or public. With a private investigation, results are only shared with the crewmate who ran the investigation.

Public investigations require more power, but All Clear results show up on The Clear List for other crewmates to view. This helps crewmate efficiency by running investigations on those already cleared.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Crewmates can only run a certain number of investigations. Once that counter reaches zero, no more investigations can be run. Keep an eye on it and make sure you're investigating wisely!

Impostors: blend in and sabotage crewmate operations

Impostors can use their power to sabotage crewmate operations or blend in as a crewmate. It's up to them to handle that balance!

Investigation Remover

Remember how crewmates can only run a certain number on investigations? Impostors can use their power to decrease the number of investigations crewmates can run.

Fake Investigation

An easy way to spot an Impostor is to find the person not running any investigations. To counter this, impostors can run fake investigations.

Disguise

To blend in even more, impostors can use their power to put on a disguise. This allows them to appear as a crewmate when someone investigates them.

Meeting and Voting

When it's time to vote someone out, the teacher or a student can call a meeting. This is where students can discuss their observations, suspicions, and evidence. This portion of the game can drag on for a while, so we encourage teachers to set a time limit to keep the game flowing.

Voting

When the discussion ends, it's time for students to vote on who they think the impostor is! The student with the most votes gets ejected off the ship.

What Happens When Ejected?

Students ejected can still participate in the game! Instead of using their power on normal actions like investigations, they'll be able to donate their power to teammates.

Meeting Counter

Crewmates must be careful with the meetings they call! Just like investigations, meetings are limited. The crewmates lose the game if they run out of meetings before voting all the impostors off!

The number of meetings that can be held is equal to the number of impostors plus one for every eight students.

Who Wins?

Crewmates win the game if they vote all impostors off the ship.

Impostors win if at least one impostor remains onboard by the time crewmates run out of meetings.

Can I end the game early?

You can by clicking the "End Game Early (Impostors Win)" button.

Pro Tips

Customize Game Options

If you're finding games are too difficult/easy, take too long, or go by too quickly, there's lots of options for you to tweak!

When you select this mode, feel free to experiment and try different options that best fit with the size and time constraints of your class.

More To It

We've baked in tons of small details/mechanics in this mode — all that help those paying close attention find impostors. We wrote up an advanced strategy guide that students can access here: https://www.gimkit.com/TrustNoOne

No Need To Be An Expert

There's a lot of new mechanics and strategy in this mode — it might take your students a few tries to fully get the hang of it. In the same way your students might have needed some time to understand powerups and upgrades, they may need some time to fully understand the ins and outs of this mode.

Have Fun!

This mode is a ton of fun, and we're excited to hear about all the heated debates and discussions students are going to have.

Now go out there and vote off those impostors!

Monthly Update - November 2020

Happy November!

Ink. Is. Here.🥳

You read that write. After months of hearing us talk about Ink, we announced it in full and started sending out early access invites on October 21st.

Now that educators and students are using Ink, we'll be rolling out early access codes to everyone on the waitlist through the end of this year, then working on fixing bugs and tightening the screws for a full release in January 2021.

But October wasn't just about Ink, let's dive into everything that happened last month!

Appreciation

This month's appreciation is for the thousands of people who requested early access to Ink before it came out! 🎈

Back in May, we laid out the basics of Ink and Ink and started an early access list for anyone who emailed us about their experiences with writing in the classroom.

We read about students who grew up to be teachers because of how much they loved writing, about teachers who love writing but feel confined by the available tools, and about everything in between.

Some of you who emailed early may have already received your early access invite codes. We're about 25% through the waitlist so far. For the rest of you, they're coming!

On behalf of Josh, Fadi, and Pharlain, I want to say thank you to everyone who waited patiently while we built Ink. Your excitement for Ink helped keep us stay focused and we're so excited for you all to try it out!

Community and Product Update

Although this school year has kicked off with uncertainty and numerous challenges, we've been inspired and encouraged by the attitude and approach we've seen from you all.

On our end, here are a few updates from a product and community perspective:

THE FLOOR IS LAVA!

I'm not an all caps kinda guy, but it felt necessary for this one.

What can I say? Seeing how you and your students responded to the Floor is Lava Mode was one of the highlights of 2020 for us.

Here's a small slice of the excitement we saw for this mode:

Floor is Lava was special because it was our first fully cooperative mode. All students worked together on a common goal for this one, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive! Seeing how this mode ignited educators and students got our gears going for future modes.

It was tough having to say goodbye to Floor is Lava for now, but I imagine it will be back sometime this school year!

Humans Vs. Zombies

The response for Floor is Lava was amazing! But we can't forget the return of Humans vs. Zombies, one of our most popular modes.

When a fun mode like Lava leaves, there's always some disappointment. But one thing that makes it feel better on our end is that we're following up with another fun and engaging mode.

Lava left two weeks after it was released, but we followed it up with Humans vs. Zombies, which captured the imagination and attention of students and teachers in its own way:

One thing both Lava and HvZ have in common is that they are a twist on Gimkit. Students and educators get excited for limited modes because so many classroom activities, even those that start out being engaging, get stale after a while. The most rewarding part of having limited modes like these is seeing the ways they pull students and educators in, re-energizing everyone and making learning exciting.

Welcome, Pharlain! 🥳

Earlier this month we added another loverly human to our small but mighty team.

Ever since Gimkit started, customer support has been primarily handled by me or Josh, so we're super excited to bring on Pharlain level up our customer support.

Please meet Pharlain Ross, our new customer support representative!

Hi, I'm Pharlain, and it's so great to be writing this!

I'm a reformed pastry chef, mother of two, and career customer support hero.

I spent more than a decade, helping to grow a customer support team from 4 to 25 at a survey software company. I learned enough to fill several novels, and I'm so excited to bring that knowledge to Gimkit to serve educators and students.

My husband is a History teacher and holds three(!) graduate degrees in education, including a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction, so helping educators is deeply personal for me.

My family and I are giant nerds who play games of all sorts (look for us at GenCon every year!). My 6-year-old daughter's favorite monster is a Beholder.

Finding a job that combines my love of games, education, and customer support is an absolute dream, made better by the passionate, funny, and kind people I get to work with.

In my free time, I read, garden, build things, and bake. That said, I have a six year-old-daughter who is a mischievous forest sprite and a 4-year-old son who is a tiny wookie with a heart of gold. So free time is a myth.

I look forward to getting to know you, the students and educators, who make Gimkit possible. Please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or pharlain@gimkit.com if you want to chat about education theory, games, statistics, or anything else. I can't wait!

Ink update

As I noted up top, we started rolling out Ink this month and it was INK-redible!

https://twitter.com/Mr_SilvaLining/status/1319340103106482177

Ink is our new product, designed to help students fall in love with writing.

Earlier this year, when we started talking about what we wanted to build next, we became fixated on writing and how it feels to be a writer when you're a student. We all felt like we had become better writers AFTER school. For us, our love and appreciation for writing didn't come until we were out of school - done and graduated.

Ink is our attempt to give more students a chance to love and appreciate writing while they're still in school.

When we started giving out early access on October 21, we had around thousands of early access requests and we’ve had thousands more since. We've released Ink to 25% of our waitlist so far.

Our decision to go with a slow roll-out for Ink seems to have been a good one. We've been able to get feedback and suggestions, bug hunt, listen to teacher and student thoughts and concerns, and make changes. All at a reasonable pace, with plenty of time for discussion where needed.

We talked to a lot of educators and students before we started building Ink. And Josh worked non-stop on Ink for about 6 months straight. But nothing beats having educators and students get in and start playing around with it.

https://twitter.com/EdTechLegaspi/status/1319317641979482112

It's been incredible to see Ink impacting student writing already: A big thank you to everyone who has tried Ink so far and let us know how it's going!

We're excited to keep rolling Ink out to more and more people and release it to everyone in January. If you want to learn more about Ink and join the waitlist, you can do both here!

Company update

Gimkit Groups is less than a year old and it’s going really well.

In September and October, schools and districts covered thousands of new teachers with hundreds of new group subscriptions.

Here are the three main reasons we love seeing so many departments, schools, and districts using Groups:

1. We don't want teachers to pay for Gimkit if they don't have to. When schools pay for teachers, they save money and their students get access to Gimkit. That's an ideal outcome for everyone involved!
   

2. This time last year, managing group subscriptions was a full-time job. Wrangling POs, keeping track of orders, processing payments, record keeping, troubleshooting because my record-keeping was terrible — it all added up to one big mess. This year, now that Groups is fully automated, more schools are able to more easily cover their teachers who are using Gimkit.
   

3. Room to grow. With Groups, we tested a theory that giving schools and departments room to grow was better for them and better for us. Our thinking was that we could save schools time and save us time, using the time and resources saved on our end to provide cheaper group subscriptions. So far, it's worked out. We've helped schools pay for more teachers since Groups launched 9 months ago than the 2+ years that preceded — by thousands and thousands of teachers.

In short, we're really excited about Groups and how many teachers it's provided Gimkit access for. 💜

What's on Deck?

We’ll be sending out more Ink early invites as we get it ready for wide release in January.

Along with Ink, we have some new Powerups we’ll be sprinkling into the Gimkit Live this month.

And Fadi is working on something for game modes that we’re not quite ready to announce yet, but is very cool. 🤫 When we have an ETA, we’ll share more — promise!

Here to help

New additions, integrations, features — these are often the things talked about when it comes to software.

But customer support? Almost never in the conversation.

Our approach to customer support was more or less an accident of sorts. Gimkit launched almost three years ago. And when I launched it, I was incredibly curious to hear what people thought.

So, I made my email really easy to find. Sure enough, people started emailing me. Some shared their thoughts, other had questions. And thus, my customer support journey began.

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A few months after the launch of Gimkit, things started to get busy. For the first time, more than 30 people were using it. The support load got much larger.

I live on the west coast — I would wake up and find a bunch of emails in the queue from folks in earlier time zones. I'd answer those, get ready for school, and try to answer the mid-day ones at or after school.

When things got even busier, I contemplated making it harder to contact me. That would allow me to sleep in a bit more, and focus on the product.

It was tempting, but just didn't sit right with me. If someone is having a hard time with Gimkit and needs some help, one sure way to make their experience worse is to make it hard to get help.

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When Jeff came onboard, he started handling most customer support. That remains to this day. Jeff has been the one providing amazing support — he's a legend.

Even as things have gotten busier and busier, we've continued to try our best to provide incredible support. If you've ever reached out to us before, you've probably seen it firsthand.

With our commitment to support, there's a statement I'm proud of:

We've responded to every single person that's ever reached out to us since Gimkit launched.

I'm sure we've unintentionally missed a few things over the years, but all in all, we've helped and responded to every person that comes our way.

We've never left someone hanging. We never ignored a tough question. We got back with great support every single time.

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The ability to provide fantastic support in a timely manner has never been more difficult than now.

In short, we're swamped. We're a team of three, and the load is too much.

Next week, we'll be expanding our team from three to four people. We're bringing on a full-time customer support representative.

I can't explain how excited I am to have someone whose entire job is to help you out. To be there if you run into any issues, or have any questions.

And while we continue to work on new and exciting things, we'll do our best to ensure something is always the same: we're here if you need us.

The Floor is Lava!

Hey everyone!

It's been a long time since we released a new game mode, no? Well, we've got a one for you: The Floor is Lava!

This mode is unique — it's our first fully cooperative mode. Instead of students competing against each-other, they work together towards a common goal.

The objective the mode is simple: stay above the lava as long as you can!

Once the game starts, lava will begin to rise. It starts off slow, but gets faster and faster over time. Students will work to construct a tower. Once the lava eclipses the tower, the game ends!

Building The Tower

On the student's end, they'll have a special section in the shop to purchase builds. Those builds will increase the height of the tower.

The builds get more and more expensive, but they also add more and more height. Strategize, budget, and plan!

Special Powerups

The Floor is Lava also has two special powerups!

Lava Pause stops the lava from rising for 10 seconds. However, only 30% of students will get this powerup.

When students purchase a build, its takes some time to fully complete. Instant Build gets their new pieces built instantly!

Pick Your Difficulty

As your students try to beat their record time, you can make things easier or harder for them. We've got four difficulties for you to choose from: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Ludicrous!

Too Far Ahead?

While students are playing, you'll have a button to increase the height of lava by 10%. This is great if you want to end the game early, or if students are doing a bit too well.

Have Fun!

The Floor is Lava leaves Gimkit on October 19th. After the 19th, Humans vs Zombies will come in for Halloween.

That's it! That's all you need to know about Floor is Lava. Drop in, have fun, and hopefully your students can set some new records!

Monthly Update - October 2020

Happy October!

Last month we transitioned our monthly update format from video to the written word. We're working on a new product that's all about helping students fall in love with writing - so that change just made sense.

Plus, it seemed to go pretty well with you all. So, let's run it back!

Appreciation

Our appreciation this month is for everyone who used our classes feature from March through August. Using a newer, small tech tool like Gimkit comes with some growing pains and that period certainly qualifies for anyone using classes.

Classes started out as a feature to keep player names safe and appropriate. It was one of the first things Josh added into Gimkit after he launched it almost three years ago.

Classes worked perfectly for keeping live games and assignments safer and more secure. As more teachers started using it and we realized the other things classes could help with, we kept adding to it.

Back in March, we made an update to classes that allows it to do even more. However, it was also more complicated than ever before. This new update to classes required students to login with Google or their email. This process had lots of steps, and caused frustration for both students and teachers. That frustration only multiplied with so many starting remote learning for the first time.

In early September we updated classes again, this time removing much of the complexity that was causing headaches.

We simplified how students join classes. Students can now join classes with fewer steps and need to provide even less information than before.

We had lots of amazing, clear, and helpful feedback on classes at the end of last school year and in August. Because you all tried classes and shared what was working and what wasn't, we were able to make adjustments that allow your students to now join your classes in as few as two clicks!

Classes is not only easier than ever to use, but it makes your live games and assignments safer and more secure than ever before. It also makes the student experience of accessing games and assignments super easy - with classes, you no longer have to send out assignment links or game codes! (More on that below.)

We're not perfect (spoiler alert!), but with your help, we were able to improve classes and make using Gimkit easier, faster, and more fun for you and your students. If you used classes, found it frustrating, and let us know what you thought - this month's appreciation is for you!

Community and Product Update

Although this school year has kicked off with uncertainty and numerous challenges, we've been inspired and encouraged by the attitude and approach we've seen from you all. We're here for you - let us know if you need anything at all on Twitter at @gimkit or over email at hello@gimkit.com.

On our end, here are a few updates from a product and community perspective:

Classes and student access updates

Without going over everything from the Appreciation section again, I'll just say that it felt great to make improvements to classes this month and see teachers and students having an easier time almost immediately.

We spent quite a bit of time mapping out the best solution for classes. We wanted to reduce complexity as much as possible without compromising on the security and safety that classes offer.

This most recent update relieved the frustrations teachers, students, and parents were feeling while bringing more convenience and security than previous versions of classes provided. You can learn more about the specific updates to classes we made in September here.

Updated privacy policy and terms of service

Along with our updates to classes, we got rid of student accounts. We moved to an authentication system that still requires some student information to use classes, but far less than before. As always, Gimkit can be used without entering any student information and without students having to sign up for anything.

Because of the changes we made to how students use classes, we updated our privacy policy and terms of service. I'm happy to say that these updates make Gimkit a more safe, secure space than ever!

If you or anyone at your school or district has any questions about our terms and/or privacy policy, please email us at privacy@gimkit.com.

The Hub

This one is really exciting!

While The Hub isn't revolutionary, it's something that makes using Gimkit even easier and simpler.

The Hub is a central place for everything a student might need to access in Gimkit. If you're using classes, your students will find live games and assignments all in a single place.

For as long as assignments have been around, you've had to send a different link for each assignment for each class. Not anymore. With The Hub, all of a student's assignments show up in one place — no need to share the link.

Similarly, you no longer need to share the code for live games with your students. Just tell them the start time for the game and once you begin hosting, the code and a link to play will show up in their Hubs.

Learn more about The Hub over on our blog!

Limited time Powerups & Modes are back!

In September we had the Back to School Beat Powerup, Super Rich Mode, Kitroduce Yourself, and Boss Battle available at different times.

For those of you who are newer to Gimkit, we try to bring Modes and Powerups in and out of the game during the school year to keep things engaging for you and your students.

I loved seeing how you and your students react to everything we added in during September. Especially fun were some of the responses to the Back to School Beat and Boss Battle:

We had a blast playing @gimkit in Boss Battle Mode! The students beat me on our Technology Kit and one of my students was brave enough to take on being the boss and won!!! @UpperMerionSD @UMAMS_Vikings pic.twitter.com/RjCkOBDArd

— Jennifer Manley (@manleyumasd) September 18, 2020

Gimkit’s back to school music BUMPS!!!!! Definitely guilty of making each of my students spend their @gimkit money for my own personal enjoyment this afternoon. Can’t wait for 4th block!!! pic.twitter.com/ADotojYDeQ

— Miss Marotta (@marotta__c) September 18, 2020

The BOSS beat the entire class! Wow. #mychildren #hmsfamily @gimkit We love THE BOSS challenge💜💜💜 pic.twitter.com/pSoaB4ehhF

— Mrs. Thrower (@cultured_hms) September 24, 2020

If you're looking to keep things interesting with Gimkit, the Back to School Beat Powerup and Kitroduce yourself are still available. PLUS, we have an exciting new mode coming next week: The Floor is Lava!

With Floor is Lava, your students will work together to construct a building higher than the rising tides of a disastrous lava flow!

Learn more here and keep an eye out for the mode in the News section of your dashboard and on Twitter!

What's up with Ink?

We are getting dangerously close to sending out the first rounds of early access invite for Ink.

Right now, we're finishing up testing and putting together the copy and tour pages for Ink.

If you haven't already, you can request early access to Ink here.

If you're one of over 2,100 teachers who have already requested early access, thank you and keep an eye on your inbox in October...

For Ink updates, follow Josh on Twitter at @joshgimkit.

Company update

Back in February, we started the hiring process for a full-time customer support representative.

With the pandemic, we had to put that process on hold. It was a hard decision to make, but I'm glad we did.

One thing Josh and I want to make sure we're doing as we grow the company is building it for the long-term. If we can, we want to avoid hiring a bunch of extra people because we can.

But customer support is an area where we do truly need help. Along with the start of this school year, we've been flooded with more support email than ever before.

This is great and both Josh and I love the direct connection we get by supporting our customers ourselves. But it's just too much for us to handle.

So, we picked the hiring process back up this month. We're down to our top few candidates, which is exciting!

We don't have an estimated start date for this role just yet, but we can't wait to provide you all better, faster support!

What's on Deck?

October will bring a brand new game mode and some old favorites!

Fadi is working on a few things right now, but one is something we're calling Mode Gallery. This will replace The Locker, which we removed over the summer. Mode Gallery should give more power to teachers who want to control the game mode flow themselves while keeping the excitement of limited-time modes.

We have a few other surprises in store, but if everything goes to plan, October will be Ink-tober...🤞

The Hub - a simple place for everything students need

Today we're releasing something new for your students: The Hub.

Over the past few weeks, I've learned just how big of an impact making something simpler is — even just removing a single step.

Recently, we made tons of improvements to classes that make them incredibly easy to join and get setup. We made all those changes from listening to you — there's now fewer areas for a student to get stuck, and it seems to be helping you all a ton.

Well, The Hub isn't revolutionary, or even particularly exciting. It's just something that makes using Gimkit even easier and simpler — it cuts down the possible areas for confusion.

The Hub is a central place for everything a student might need to access in Gimkit. If you're using classes, your students will find live games and assignments all in a single place.

Assignments

For as long as assignment has been around, you've had to send a different link for each assignment for each class. Not anymore.

With The Hub, all of a student's assignments show up in one place — no need to share the link.

They can see what's coming up, what they've completed, and what they need to do soon. The Hub shows a student all their assignments across different teachers and classes.

This means there's no need to send out assignment links anymore! Students can access them all right within The Hub.

Live Games

The other half of Gimkit is live games. Those too are right within The Hub! Once you start hosting a game, students can find the game code and a button to join at the top of The Hub.

No need to send the game code out anymore! Just have students visit The Hub, and click to join your game.

The Hub also allows you to schedule live games! Tell your students the time you plan on playing Gimkit, and ask them to open The Hub at that time. They'll see the game there ready to join. And with video calling integrated within Gimkit, they can join your game and video call in a single place.

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The Hub is available to everybody right now! Just make sure you're using classes when hosting live games or creating assignments. That's how we know what to show to students.

I hope this makes things even a little bit easier for you and your students. As always, if you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to reach out.

Thanks so much!

Joining classes is even easier

Hey everyone!

As the school year started, we heard from many of you that the class joining process was far too confusing and difficult.

So, we got to work and made several improvements that make using classes easier for you and your students. We're happy to say that using classes is easier than ever!

As always, you don't need to use classes. It's an optional feature. You can still use Gimkit without using classes to host live games and share assignments with your students.

If you're not familiar with classes, check out our helpdesk article explaining classes here.

In short, classes is the best investment you can make while using Gimkit. Takes a little time in the beginning, but it unlocks all sorts of awesome things. With that, let's see what's new.

One click to join

When a student visits the link to join your class, there's no longer a registration process. Instead, students join classes with Google or by entering their email address. If they join with Google, they'll be in with one click.

Get in with an assignment link

As always, you can create assignments with or without classes. However, if you connect classes to an assignment, your students can now join the class by clicking the assignment link.

We made this change to help with the confusion of multiple links and join options. Some of your students may miss a step here or there. Skipping the class join link isn't a problem anymore - students can now click the assignment link for the class you want them in and join the class that way.

Unsticking live games

If your students enter a live game code at gimkit.com/play while you're hosting a game connected to a class, they'll see an option to join the class.

As soon as they join the class, students are brought right back to the live game. Fast and easy

We all make mistakes

Some of your students may have created Educator accounts instead of joining your class as a student. We've got them (and you) covered!

Students with Educator accounts can now click the class join link, assignment link, or enter the code for a live game with a class to switch over to a student. Once they switch to a student, they'll be added to your class automatically.

Hope this helps!

That's it for the major updates to classes!

We've also added in lots of other help and bumpers to make sure you and your students spend less time on setting up classes. You can find details, instructions, and helper videos on our helpdesk in the classes section: https://help.gimkit.com/en/category/classes-1uby5ef/

Have fun and thank you for reading!

An upgrade gets an upgrade

Almost three years ago when Gimkit launched, it had the same four upgrades in the shop today: Money Per Question, Streak Bonus, Multiplier, and Insurance.

We've added some additional levels and changed the pricing a bit, but the way these upgrades work has remained exactly the same. Well, today we're changing things up a bit. We're changing how Streak Bonus works.

Previously, the streak bonus kicked in only when you answered two questions correctly in a row.

Now it stacks. So you'll get an additional bonus on your second question answered correctly, and then another bonus on your third, fourth, and so on.

If you get one question wrong, your streak resets to zero. The more accurate you are, the more you earn and the more you have to lose.

The Streak Bar shows your potential future earnings if you continue to answer questions correctly.

So, why did we make this change?

Progression

With the old streak bonus, you reached your maximum amount of money earned per question at two questions correct. This meant long stretches of game could go on where you were just earning the same amount of money.

Now that the bonus stacks, you're earning more and more every single question. It helps students feel they're constantly working towards something!

Reward Accuracy over Speed

One of the core design decisions of Gimkit has been to reward accuracy over speed. It's why we've never awarded more money for questions answered quickly.

With this change, you start to earn the big bucks by answering questions correctly in a row. But remember, one incorrect answer and your streak resets back to zero. This helps incentivizes students to slow down and think about the question before answering.

Underdogs

This new streak bonus change also allows students who aren't typically the best shoppers to place higher on the leaderboard.

In a few simulations we ran, there were quite a few scenarios where a student that was more accurate, but had worse upgrades still won the game. Of course strategy is still an important piece to winning Gimkit, but this allows other ways to win as well.

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That's the new change to streak bonus, and it's available right now! We're just a team of three, and changes like this don't always correlate well when played with a class of thirty.

So, send us you and your student's feedback! We've got lots of things we can tweak like the pricing of upgrades and how effective they are.

Thanks for your support and stay tuned — we've got a lot of exciting game changes ahead!

Gimkit Update - July & August

We've been doing our monthly updates in video form for over a year now, but we're switching that up this month.

Rather than a video, I wanted to try putting everything down in writing as a blog post. Hopefully, this will help you spend less time getting updated on Gimkit while also getting links and images you need for context right at your fingertips.

Alright, we have lots to share from July and the first half of August - let's dive in!

Appreciation

Our appreciation for this update is for Flippin Good Tech! 🙌

Josh spoke to Flippin’ Good Tech hosts Elizabeth King and Darryl Legaspi shortly after we announced Ink. They put that conversation out on July 31 and you can check it out here to learn more about Ink and hear Josh say "Y'all!"

We're sharing this month's appreciation with Elizabeth and Darryl not because they highlighted Josh or Ink, but for all they do for educators with their fun, engaging, accessible, and highly informative podcasts.

Educators that are dedicated to their students and who go that extra mile to help other educators give us the warm fuzzies.

Thank you Elizabeth and Darryl, keep up the good work!

Community and Product Update

School is starting back up and the back-to-school push this year comes with an even wider range of emotions than usual.

The upcoming school year presents a challenge for educators, students, parents - pretty much everyone involved in educating our young people.

Back around the beginning of July, Josh wrote a letter to the President and shared it on our blog as well. As outlined in Josh's letter, our business has been negatively impacted by schools moving to distance learning. Even though Gimkit is most engaging when used live in the classroom, we firmly and unequivocally support teaching from a distance until it's safe to return to the classroom.

School isn't back in session here in the Seattle area until early September, but many of you all are already back to school. We've felt it here with an increase in Gimkit usage, emails, and many more group subscriptions. We're here to support you and your students whether you're returning in-person or remote!

Here are some resources and updates for you, as you all get back school and start using Gimkit in this new environment:

📹 Video calling in Gimkit

We're really excited for this one!

At the end of July, we added the ability to add in Zoom video calls alongside your live Gimkit games. That means you can interact with your students in a Zoom call while they play Gimkit on the same screen. Everything happens for your students inside of Gimkit, no Zoom account required.

Many of you have asked for Microsoft Teams and Google Meet support with this feature. Meet and Teams do not currently have anything open to developers to allow us to add them in as video conferencing or video sharing options.

If Zoom won't work for you, we do have another option. You can go live on Youtube and add that stream into your Gimkit games using the same feature that enables Zoom.

You can learn more about how video calling in Gimkit works on our help desk and on our blog.

🎒 Assignments updates

If you've been in Gimkit over the last few days you might have noticed a big update to Assignments.

Assignments are an ideal way to keep students engaged while letting them play Gimkit on their own time. With more of you using Assignments because of the pandemic, we were able to map out improvements and implement them over the summer.

Here's a quick rundown of what's new:

• View students working on an assignment

• View multiple completions

• View the report for a specific student

• Change an assignment after the fact

• More information for students

• Clapping at the end of assignments 🤣👏

As you explore more, you'll see lots of smaller improvements like our new assignment creator. We'll let you have fun with those.

It was important to us to address your frustrations and suggestions with these improvements and we're excited for you to check it out. Learn more about everything that's new with Assignments here!

🌎 Remote learning guide & Gimkit updates

For those of you teaching from a distance, we have a Remote Learning Guide we hope might make things a little easier. We'll keep this updated as we add more to help you engage your students from a distance.

🌟 Updated free plan

In July, we updated Gimkit Basic, our free plan.

We believe these changes will help us build the best products while providing the best support possible, not just now but for the long term.

Take a moment to read our blog post to learn more about how and why Gimkit Basic has changed. Let us know if you have any questions at all.

What's up with Ink?

We've been getting lots of questions about what's going on with Ink.

Josh is still hard at work building Ink and is more excited than ever for you all to try it out! Recently, he's been working on some of the finer details - the elements that make Ink truly special.

While Ink is relatively simple to build, the complexity is in creating something that works for educators and helps students love writing. We think Ink can be transformative for young writers and we're taking our time to make sure we get it right.

Thank you all for your support - we have over 1,600 early access requests. Thank you also for your patience. Ink is a big deal to us - reading about how you feel about writing in school has been amazing.

For Ink updates, follow Josh on Twitter at @joshgimkit.

What's on Deck?

Many schools have started already and by this time next month, every school in the US will be back in full swing. In case you're starting up from a distance, here's our guide to remote learning again.

And for everyone, whether you're teaching in person or from a distance, we brought back Kitroduce Yourself!

Many of you used Kitroduce Yourself last year to get to know your students and to help build those early classroom relationships. Whether you've used it before or not, or you're meeting in person or not, Kitroduce Yourself is perfect for building relationships with your students and for breaking up the monotony of traditional ice breakers.

Also coming up in the next few months, we have some exciting updates regarding modes and continued improvements to Classes and Assignments to help with remote learning and instruction.

Although this school year is kicking off with uncertainty and numerous challenges, we've been inspired and encouraged by the attitude and approach we've seen from you all. We're here for you - let us know if you need anything at all on Twitter at @gimkit or over email at hello@gimkit.com.

Kitroduce Yourself is Back!

We've released tons of back to school updates already, like Zoom calls within Gimkit, and major improvements to assignments.

Well we've got another back to school update. This one isn't so much of a release, it's a re-release. We're bringing back Kitroduce Yourself! Here's how it works.

If you're not familiar, we have an incredible feature in Gimkit that allows your students to create the questions in realtime. It's called KitCollab.

It's super simple. After students enter the game code, they're asked to create their own question.

Once they submit the question, you're able to accept/reject it.

Then, once you start the game, you'll be playing Gimkit, but with questions the students just created! Plus, that Kit is saved to your account - that means you can play it later or assign it as homework.

Well, with Kitroduce Yourself, there's a neat little option when students add their questions. Did you spot it?

That's right, student can take a photo of themselves and attach it to their submitted question! You can use this to have students introduce themselves and get to know another better. That's why we called it Kitroduce Yourself!

Students can take a photo, and then decide what kind of question they want to ask. Perhaps a three truths and a lie. Or maybe a question to get to know their name. It's up to you and your students!

Once you start the game, your students will be playing Gimkit and getting to know one another at the same time. As always, if they get a question incorrect, they'll be able to learn from it and move on!

And that's Kitroduce Yourself. Looking forward to all the creative ways you all will use it with your students. As always, we're here if you need anything or have any questions.

Assignments just got a big upgrade

Let's talk assignments because there's a whole lot that's new.

Assignments in Gimkit allows your students to play Gimkit asynchronously. No scheduling live games and sending out the game code. Instead, students play Gimkit on their own time, at their own pace. They've been used a ton with distance learning.

I first launched assignments two years ago because students were begging their teachers to assign Gimkit as homework. Now with distance learning, assignments play a much more central role in the way many of you use Gimkit.

The thing is, we haven't spent too much time or attention on assignments since it came out. Today that's changing - we've got some awesome updates to share with you all! Watch the video to see what's new:

Awesome, no? Let's dive into the details a bit more.

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View students working on an assignment

Sometimes, students don't finish an assignment. Up to this point, it's looked like they hadn't done anything at all. Not anymore.

Now you're able to see which students started working on the assignment, but haven't finished it. You'll see when they started, and how far they got.

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View multiple completions

You can now view students that complete an assignment multiple times. Before we just showed you their first attempt, now we show you all of them.

Oh, and you'll get a report on each attempt, that way you can see how the student improved over time.

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View the report for a specific student

Earlier this year, we added reports for assignments, that way all the data you get from live games, you get for assignments. But now it's much quicker to view a student's results.

Under each student, you'll see a "View Report" button. Click that and you'll see their report pop up on the screen. It's incredibly easy and fast to find areas that your students might need help with.

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Change an assignment after the fact

If you've ever used assignments, this story is probably familiar. You created an assignment, but students told you that it was a bit too difficult. You went to go lower the cash goal only to find that you can't!

Not anymore. Now you can modify an assignment's options after it's been created. Start students off with more cash, make it easier to reach the cash goal. Whatever it is, you can change it anytime.

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More information for students

When students complete the assignment, there's now some additional learning and fun.

First up, they're able to view how many questions they got correct and incorrect, just like in a live game.

If they scroll down, they're also able to view all the questions in the assignment. This way, they can review and see what they might have missed.

And finally, they can now CLAP when they complete an assignment. This time though, you won't have to hear it. 😆

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That's what's new with assignments! As you explore more, you'll see lots of smaller improvements like our new assignment creator. We'll let you have fun with those.

We hope these updates will make assignments better for everyone. And for those starting this year with distance learning, hopefully this makes using Gimkit remotely even easier and more fun.

If you'd like to learn more, we have a bunch of helpdesk articles on assignments you can find right here. And, as always, let us know if you have any questions at hello@gimkit.com

Take care and have a great school year!

All new - video calls in Gimkit

Last week we launched and shared something we're really excited about: video calls inside of Gimkit.

The upcoming school year presents a challenge for educators, students, parents - pretty much everyone involved in educating our young people.

Teaching from a distance is less than ideal. But we've been inspired and encouraged by the attitude and approach we've seen from you all - the incredible teachers tasked with educating students from afar.

As you know better than anyone, the connection you share with your students goes beyond transferring information. Your ability to impact the lives of your students, support them, and to truly educate depends on your ability to connect with them.

Video conferencing provides a "next best thing" option to the connection offered by daily meetings in a classroom. It isn't perfect, but it provides a space for you to not only instruct but to just be with your students.

As last school year wrapped up with distance learning in full swing, we saw many teachers juggling video conferencing and educational tools like Gimkit to instruct and engage students. It looked cumbersome, problematic, and distracting. But, it was the solution you had available and, as you always do, you all made the best of it.

With school coming back, we started thinking about how we could make this juggling routine just a little bit better for Gimkit educators and students. The result is that you can now have a video call right inside of Gimkit - and it's live in Gimkit now!

Watch this video to see how it works:

With video calls right within Gimkit, it's the closest thing to feeling like you and your students are playing in the same room together. Students can play Gimkit and be part of the call side-by-side, all without downloading anything!

You can start using video conferencing with Zoom inside of your live Gimkit games in just 3 steps! Here's how

Step 1.
When you start hosting a new game, click the "Add Remote Communication" button on the right side.

Step 2.
Start a Zoom call on your computer and copy and paste the details into Gimkit.

Zoom is currently the only video conferencing software that allows for this functionality. If other providers like Google Meet or Microsoft Teams open up access for developers in the future, we'll work to add it in!

Step 3.
You're good to go! Students will now be able to join your Zoom call in-game - no download required!

That's it! That's all it takes to get started.

Now, let's take a look at what happens on the student's end.

When students join your Gimkit game, they'll be asked if they'd like to join the call:

Once they accept, your students will have the video call and Gimkit side-by-side. If they'd like, they can just watch the call, or join in. They can even turn on their mic and camera!

So, that's our new feature: video calling right within Gimkit.

You can learn more about the ins and outs and find troubleshooting suggestions on our help desk, under the new Remote Learning category.

We hope this helps as you and your students tackle remote learning together and we wish you all the best this upcoming school year. Let us know if you need anything at all!

Unproductive comparison

I've discovered something recently — it's a lot easier to improve something than create something.

I'm currently working on Ink, which is the first time I've worked on something entirely new in almost three years. I began my work on Gimkit all the way back in May of 2017. Ever since then, my work has been improving Gimkit.

But Ink is something brand new, in fact it doesn't fully exist yet. I've been given a blank canvas, now I have to make something on it.

This shift from improvement to first-time creation has brought upon some unique challenges. One of those is comparison.

When you create something new, that thing can be anything, but it can't be anything. Constraints exist, and you have to work towards the anything that makes the most sense given your situation.

Many times throughout the process of building Ink, I've been unable to do that. I look at other products, not even in the world of writing, and wish Ink could be a little more like that. But the comparison is completely unfair. Some of these products have been around for years, some have been worked on by teams of 100+ people.

It's the software equivalent of comparing your body to someone on a fitness magazine cover. That person likely has had a lot more time to train, was perhaps luckier genetically, heck it might even be Photoshopped. You can compare yourself to that person on the fitness magazine cover, but it's an unfair comparison.

When working on Gimkit, I very rarely compare it to other things. I feel confident in how it works/feels/does. I feel great with where it's at, but know there's lots more to improve.

But with Ink, I've found myself comparing. Comparing a lot.

In each of these times I've compared Ink to something else, I never feel like it results in Ink getting better, or me feeling better about my work.

So I've been trying to break out of it — and I think I'm getting better. What's helped me the most is looking at how immature the first version of many new products are.

I'm going to show you some screenshots of the first version of Gimkit. Here's what it looked like when adding a question to a Kit:

Here's what your dashboard looked like (Gimkit was called Gimlet originally)

Here's what viewing a Kit looked like:

You can see just how different things are now, and how much things have come along. When the first version of Gimkit came out, there were tons and tons of things missing.

You couldn't edit Kits. You couldn't create assignments. You couldn't add images/audio to questions. There was no KitCollab. There were no powerups. Reports weren't saved in your account. There were no classes. There were no game modes. You couldn't search for other Kits. You couldn't join a game after it started. And so much more was missing.

But you know what? Students and teachers loved using Gimkit — even back then. Heck, people paid for Gimkit when it was just the first version.

Remembering that has helped me a ton in feeling more confident with my work on Ink. It doesn't need to look/feel the greatest on day one. It's okay if it's missing features. It's okay if it's immature.

It's the first version, the first take, the first of many. It's not the end of the road, it's the beginning.

Gimkit Basic has changed

Today, we're releasing an update to Gimkit Basic, our free plan.

One piece of feedback we've gotten on Gimkit Basic is that, for educators who are new to Gimkit, the current restrictions hinder your ability to explore and create.

The original Gimkit Basic basic plan restricted the creation of material — you could only create a certain number of Kits and only edit each of your Kits once.

A common request from educators new to Gimkit is for additional Kits or edits because of typos, mistakes, or not understanding how Kit creation works. In short, many educators have told us that having restrictions on our free version of Gimkit makes sense, but the ones we have are too restrictive.

Because of this feedback, we've been discussing an update to Gimkit Basic for over a year and a half.

The solution we've come up with does a much better job of letting educators new to Gimkit get a feel for it, learn how to use it, and really test it out. Here's how the new Gimkit Basic works:

Now, anybody who now registers for Gimkit will be on a trial of Gimkit Pro for 30 days. That way they can access everything Gimkit has to offer without restrictions.

If you don't upgrade after the trial is complete, you'll be downgraded to Gimkit Basic, however, Gimkit Basic has changed a bit.

The new Gimkit Basic restricts classroom use of Gimkit, but gives you more freedom and time to play around with Gimkit and doesn't restrict content creation.

What’s changed with Gimkit Basic?

• Pro trial - New Gimkit Basic accounts get a 30 day trial of Pro

• The Kit limit is gone - create as many Kits as you want

• The edit limit is removed - edit each of your Kits as many times as you’d like

• Player limit - no more than 5 players can join lives games

• Assignment creation - no new assignments can be created

For those of you on Gimkit Pro, nothing will change. You'll still have full access to everything Gimkit has to offer. This is just a change for new educators and those already on our free plan.

If you have any questions, just let me know. Thanks!