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.