Annual Letter - SY 22/23

Gimkit has changed a lot since it was first released as a high school project in late October 2017.

Back then, it was a simple, engaging game show for the classroom called “Gimlet.”

Fast forward to 2023, and Gimkit looks a lot different. And all that progress is thanks to you!

Because of your feedback and support, we've been able to keep the company independent, improve Gimkit every school year, and continue to make it as engaging as possible for your students.

This school year, we reached some amazing milestones, including adding 2D assignments, building our most ambitious game mode (One Way Out), and releasing our biggest update ever (Gimkit Creative).

You can see everything we added this school year here!

We love working on Gimkit alongside you all and we’re already looking forward to next school year.

Thank you for all of your support this school year. Have a fantastic summer! 💜

- Josh & Jeff

Assignments Go 2D!

We rebuilt assignments from the ground up so they work with 2D game modes. This post covers what’s new!

What’s changing?

Until now, assignments could only be played with Gimkit Classic.

When we built the original version of assignments back in early 2018, we didn’t have any 2D game modes. Heck, we didn’t have any game modes at all!

To allow assignments to work with 2D game modes, we had to build an entirely new version.

Over the summer, we removed the original version of assignments, including deleting all existing assignments. We wrote a blog post last April detailing our decision-making process and timeline.

Although removing the old version of assignments was painful, it was necessary to improve upon one of our most popular paid features. Assignments are now more dynamic and engaging than ever!

What’s Better?

2D modes for assignments

You can now assign 2D game modes as homework, making assignments more dynamic and engaging.

There are currently 2 game modes for assignments, Fishtopia and a 2D version of Gimkit Classic called Cash Tycoon.

While not every 2D mode will be available for assignments, we’re planning to add more game modes for assignments in the coming months.

XP & leveling

After we introduced the Item Shop last April, the incentive of earning XP and collecting cosmetics became a powerful engagement tool for teachers

With the new version of assignments, students can now earn XP when completing their assignments, just like live 2D games.

Creating & sharing assignments

Setting up an assignment and selecting game options is a smoother, more intuitive experience, which should save you time.

Now, the flow for creating an assignment is the same as hosting a live game: Choose the kit —> choose the mode —> configure game options.

And when you’re ready to share your assignment with your student, there’s now just one link, which cuts down on clutter and confusion.

Filter & Sort

Viewing assignment results has also been improved!

You can now filter results by status (Completed, Working On It, Has Not Started) as well as class. Additionally, results can now be filtered by either first name or last initial!

What’s Worse?

As with any major product update, we had to make a few tradeoffs.

The latest due date an assignment can have is now 45 days in the future and students can no longer complete past-due assignments.

Also, once you’ve created an assignment you cannot edit its game options.

Both of these limitations exist because our 2D game modes are more dynamic and subject to change.

The ins and outs of these issues and why we made the decisions we did are complicated. So, Josh wrote a post detailing why we made the tradeoffs and decisions that led to assignments being weaker in some areas. Read his full post here.

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Thanks for reading!

As always, let us know if you have any questions or concerns. You can share & upvote product suggestions over on our feedback page and we love hearing from you at hello@gimkit.com!

Annual Letter - SY 21/22

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 🎉

Without you, there is no Gimkit. And we’re not just talking about financial support or site visits.

You help us improve with your feedback and support us with your memberships, of course.

But you also inspire us to be better, pushing us to develop tools that can match your creativity and ingenuity for teaching your students.

With everything going on in the world, from a global pandemic to geopolitical tragedy, education is more important than ever. Supporting what you do and how you do it is critical and we’re honored to be a small part of how you engage and elevate your students.

This school year, millions of new teachers and students discovered Gimkit. Thousands of schools and districts purchased licenses to cover their teachers. Along the way, we made updates and improvements to Gimkit based on your feedback.

For the first half of this school year, we focused on making teacher-side improvements, including re-building KitCollab from the ground up.

In November, we made Gimkit free. We also switched our development focus radically, focusing on student engagement improvements, starting with Fishtopia, our first 2D game mode and an introduction to a whole new world inside of Gimkit.

You can see everything we added this school year here!

Thank you for all of your support and inspiration, this school year and every other. Here’s to you and all you’ve overcome in another challenging school year. 💜

- Josh & Jeff

December 2021 Update

Happy December! ☃️

A lot has happened since our last update, so let's dive in!

Appreciation

Each year, from August to December, we get a steady stream of emails from retiring and recently retired educators. I wanted to take a moment to recognize all of those teachers and their years of hard work.

To all of the educators who retired in 2021, thank you for your dedication to the thousands of young people you supported, taught, and cared for over the decades you put in. Enjoy your well-earned rest and relaxation — you're the best! 💜

Community & Product Update

Fishtopia — game-changing game mode

We recently launched a truly special game mode: Fishtopia!

Fishtopia isn’t just a new game mode, it’s our first 2D mode and a whole new world.

We like going into the Holiday break every year with an new, special way for teachers to engage their students.

This year, we launched Fishtopia for everyone (Pro and Free) with two weeks before break, hoping it’d give teachers and students a fun, relaxing way to review for end-of-term and State tests.

It's been out for just over a week and, so far, it seems like students are loving it!

If you haven’t had a chance to try Fishtopia yet, it’s a featured mode, so it’s free for everyone! Cast off using any of your kits and see if your kids get hooked!

Gimkit Goes Free

Since Gimkit launched 4 years ago, we've had a limited free plan. Not anymore.

In November, we launched a brand new free version of Gimkit. Needless to say, educators were excited...

In case you missed our announcement, you can read everything here.

KitCollab rebuilt from the ground up

In October, we released a brand new KitCollab. You can now use KitCollab to collaborate in real-time or asynchronously with anyone! Learn more here.

A new mode picker, designed for ease & discovery

When you click "Play Live" on a kit, our new image-driven, categorized mode picker pops up.

Our mode picker is perfect for browsing and mode discovery, which will keep things simple, easy, and quick when you need to select a game mode, even as we add more.

Featured modes are free to everyone and Pro Exclusive Modes (marked with a star when you hover) are available without limitation to Pro members.

Gimkit & Ink, both in one place

Ink was a big experiment. We're still excited about the creative spark it can provide for students, but it wasn't working as its own, separate product. So, we pulled Ink into the main Gimkit product.

Projects are now Inklets; they live inside Gimkit with the rest of your content. Find all of your inklets and create new ones right from your dashboard.

Company Update

Welcome Jorge, Fishtopia Designer

I'm happy to introduce Jorge Peral as the most recent addition to the Gimkit team!

Jorge joined Gimkit in October to help design Fishtopia. Everything you see in Fishtopia… Jorge illustrated it!

In a short time, Jorge worked closely with Josh to turn his vision for Fishtopia into reality. And he did a phenomenal job! 👏

What's On Deck?

Every year, we take a 2-week holiday break at the end of December. This year, we'll be out from Monday, December 20th to Sunday, January 2nd.

We're already looking forward to sharing more updates with you in the new year — Fishtopia is just the beginning… 🐟 ✨

Thank you for all of your support, we'll see you in 2022! 🥳

Monthly Update - October 2021

Happy fall everyone! 🍂

Our last update was back in June. Here’s what’s new since then:

• BRAND NEW MODE: What Is...

• School Library

• Change your school

• Privacy tags

• Kit editor updates

• Powered Up Tuesdays

• Removed seasons

Want to learn more? Keep reading for the full monthly update!

Appreciation

This month, we're sharing our appreciation to all of the educators who presented on and learned about Gimkit in PD sessions over the summer and as school started back up.

I know that's a wide net to cast, but stick with me here...

A lot of educators took the time to present on Gimkit this summer. You could've presented on anything. But you presented on Gimkit.

Awesome.

And in each of those sessions, still more educators sat, listened, learned, and (hopefully) had fun. You could've done a lot of other things with your time off. You chose to spend some of it learning about Gimkit.

Super awesome.

Thank you so much for taking the time this summer to teach and learn about Gimkit! 💜💜💜

Community & Product Update

What Is...

Our first new game mode of the school year, What Is... brings in Jeopardy-style gameplay...but with a powerful twist.

When students join a game of What Is… they pick a power. They’ll keep that power the entire game, where they’ll all answer the same question at the same time.

We're excited about this game mode because it's so different from what we've made before!

Try What Is… now!

School Library

The School Library makes it easy for teachers at the same school to share and discover kits.

We use the school on your account to provide a space where new you can easily find, copy, and use kits created by other educators in your building.

School Library is active and accessible for all teachers in Gimkit. Just click School Library from your Gimkit Live dashboard to start exploring!

Change your school

When you created your Gimkit account, you selected the school you work at. This is what we use to populate your School Library!

To make sure your School Library is accurate and stays relevant year after year, we added a way for you to update your school info.

You can now view, change, or unenroll from your school any time from the School section under Settings in your account.

Privacy Tags

All kits created in Gimkit are public by default. Public kits can be viewed by anyone in Gimkit, including students. Private kits are only visible to you.

Sometimes you may want to make one of your kits "Private." We've made that a lot easier!

You can now change the privacy of any kit you own at any time. Just click the privacy tag at upper left in the kit editor when you're creating a new kit or editing an existing one.

Kit editor updates

We made some unplanned changes to the kit editor!

We were updating a small thing in the kit editor and found a few areas for improvement.

All-in we:

• Improved the design, making it easier to use

• Added the "privacy" tag to make changing kit privacy more intuitive & quicker

• Added the ability to copy questions

Nothing life-changing, but the kit editor is now easier and faster to use.

For example, the new "copy" button for questions lets you skip writing and re-writing similar question and answer combos.

Read about the kit editor changes we made in August here.

Powered Up Tuesdays

We wanted to keep things simple for the beginning of the school year. So, we kicked the year off with fewer powerups in Gimkit.

We also started something new: Powered Up Tuesdays!

Now, most weeks, we'll add in an old or new powerup!

Already, we've brought back three powerups and introduced a brand new one: Minute to Win It!

We've also made sure to let students know that some things might be missing from the game.

When your students are waiting for a game to start, they see a note on their screens letting them know that we've removed some powerups and we'll be adding them back.

Seasons has been removed

We removed seasons from Gimkit in September.

We heard from some of you who were upset to see it go and I get it.

Removing seasons was a tough call. We've seen teachers use seasons in so many fun, engaging ways over the years.

This decision is part of an upcoming update we're excited about and, often, we have to move or remove things to make room for new things.

Unfortunately, seasons doesn't fit in with where we're taking Gimkit and it isn't used enough to justify keeping.

That said, the idea behind seasons is something we're still committed to. We're excited to iterate and expand on the kernel that made seasons exciting: The ability to make Gimkit progress meaningful over a period of time.

That's it!

All right, that's what we've got for this month!

We'll have more for you in November — we're working on some exciting things we can't wait to start sharing...🤫

Until then, take care and have a wonderful October! 🎃

Kit Editor Updates!

We gave Gimkit Live's kit editor a mini-facelift. Nothing huge, just a few tweaks to smooth things out and save you time.

What’s changing?

We didn't shake things up too much this time.

All-in, we:

• Moved the "all change saved" note to the bottom left of the editor

• Swapped out the "Finished" button for a more clear "Done" button

• Added a "Copy" button; Use it to copy questions while creating & editing kits

• Put a privacy tag at upper left; click it to change the privacy of your kit

Here's what our kit editor looks like now:

This is a pretty minor update overall.

But the kit editor is now easier to use. Plus, these changes should save you some time!

What’s been improved?

Privacy tag

All newly created kits in Gimkit Live are public by default. You can modify kit privacy at any time.

You've always been able to modify kit privacy for your kits, but finding how to do so wasn't intuitive.

Now, when you're editing or creating a kit, just click the privacy tag at the upper left of the editor to select private or public.

Copying questions

Another improvement that will save you time is the new "copy" button for questions.

Just click the "copy" icon to the right of any question to copy it and its answers.

Educators have been upvoting this suggestion on our feedback page for a while because it can be tedious (and time-consuming) to write and re-write similar question & answer combos.

Now, just click that copy button as many times as you need and then edit each question to make any tweaks!

What are the tradeoffs?

For this update, we didn't have to make many compromises.

We cleaned up the design and added in a few improvements. Nothing really got more difficult or more complicated.

If you're used to the old kit editor, some of the design changes may be confusing. We didn't remove anything vital; just some shuffling and re-wording.

Using the kit editor a time or two should catch you up to speed. And, creating and editing should be a little quicker and simpler now.

That's it!

As always, let us know if you have any comments, feedback, or concerns. You can share & upvote suggestions over on our feedback page and we love hearing from you at hello@gimkit.com!

Introducing School Library!

We're excited to welcome educators back for the new school year with something brand new!

The School Library for Gimkit Live gives you a place to discover kits made by educators at your school.

If another teacher at your school mentions that they made a kit, you can check the School Library for it.

Or, if you're new to Gimkit and teachers in your building already use Gimkit, visit the School Library to access their kits!

To get to your school's library, go to your Gimkit Live dashboard and click on School Library in the left panel.

Once you're in your school's library, you'll see a list of all kits created by teachers at your school, organized by creation date.

If you have any other questions at all, check out our School Library article here or reach out at hello@gimkit.com!

Welcome back to school — have fun sharing and exploring! 🥳 ✨ 📚

Everything We Added This School Year

Alright, here's everything we added to Gimkit in the 2020/21 School Year! Thank you for making all of this possible with your support. Enjoy!

Assignments V2

https://blog.gimkit.com/blog/2020-assignments-updates

Floor is Lava

https://blog.gimkit.com/blog/the-floor-is-lava

Forever Modes

https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1336660620146405380

Trust No One

https://blog.gimkit.com/blog/trust-no-one

Quick Link for Live Games

https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1354796370494844930

Taking Gimkit Carbon Negative

https://blog.gimkit.com/blog/carbon-negative

New (and Improved) Search

https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1359145025309822977

The Hub

https://blog.gimkit.com/blog/the-hub

Gimkit Ink

https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1356603276586676224

https://www.gimkit.com/ink

https://www.themerrillsedu.com/blog-1/2021/2/5/how-to-use-gimkit-ink

Privacy Tags for Ink

https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1364578326174572549

Draw That

https://blog.gimkit.com/blog/draw-that

Student Commenting for Ink

http://blog.gimkit.com/blog/student-commenting-in-ink

Smart Repetition

https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1385227891529732098

Read To Me

https://blog.gimkit.com/blog/read-to-me-for-gimkit-live

New Powerups (Quadgrader, Streak Saver, Cash Concealer, Outnumbered)

Quadgrader - https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1324457768871317505

Streak Saver - https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1367486488917798917

Outnumbered - https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1382698222968266758

Quick Add & Quick Send for Groups

https://help.gimkit.com/en/article/how-to-purchase-a-group-license-122ub4c/

Pay for Me

https://help.gimkit.com/en/article/how-to-have-your-school-or-department-pay-for-you-zkf0ks/

Come Back Mode

https://twitter.com/gimkit/status/1387042598892756992

GiveKit

https://www.gimkit.com/givekit

Monthly Update - May 2021

Happy May!

A lot happened in April — let's dive in!

Appreciation

This month, we'd like to share our appreciation for Sam Kary!

Sam is an outstanding educator who does a remarkable job sharing, promoting, and explaining EdTech. This appreciation is for all of that work and for the truly perfect Gimkit tutorial video Sam created and shared in March.

Sam, thank you for all of the work you do and for taking the time to share your tools and approach in such a clear, effective way with other educators! 🥳👏

Everything New

Here's a quick snapshot of everything new we added to Gimkit Live in April!

• Read to Me 🔈

• Smart Repetition 🧠

• Come Back mode 💫

• Improved Group purchasing process 🎒

• Outnumbered powerup 🌟

This is just a quick run-down. Starting now, I’ll include a quick look like this each month so I (and you) can have an easy-to-see, visual of what's new each month.

As always, I’ll also include detailed notes on the month’s highlights. Check out April’s below!

Community & Product Update

GimCoin

For April Fools this year, we launched our very own cryptocurrency called GimCoin!🤑

While we didn't get rich from it or trick a ton of you, we did get a bunch of requests to keep GimCoin in the game.

We understand having a non-currency symbol might be useful in certain situations and for younger grades. Something similar has been made as a product suggestion over in our feedback center: https://gimkit.nolt.io/634.

You can share and upvote any ideas you want to see in Gimkit anytime here!

Draw That became a Forever Mode

Typically, we treat our modes like movie releases.

They come out for a limited time, go away for a while, then come back as a Forever Mode. Kind of like the traditional model for movie releases: Theater → Unavailable → DVD/VOD.

For Draw That, we looked at the calendar, saw the end of the school year coming up fast, and just made it a Forever Mode immediately.

In early April we let everyone know. There was some excitement, to say the least...

I'm happy we were able to make this adjustment to keep Draw that available! For future modes, we'll still follow our normal formula.

You can play Draw That anytime by clicking "Play" on any of your Kits and selecting it on the game mode selection screen. Learn more about how Draw That works here and check out the student art gallery here!

Come Back Mode

To add some more fun to end-of-the-year learning, we put out the brand-new Come Back Mode, which has all removed powerups, including music powerups.

This is basically a retro mode, where you can play Gimkit with only the powerups that have been removed from Gimkit. Plus, whenever a powerup leaves the other modes and regular game, they'll show up in this mode.

Come Back mode is available now for a limited time, so get those games in!

Smart Repetition for Gimkit Live

Our most upvoted product suggestion in our feedback center, Smart Repetition was a big release for us this month!

Thanks to you all and to Fadi (who built the thing), students now see questions they struggle with more often in Gimkit Live — for live games AND assignments.

Until this update, once a student answered all of the questions in a Kit, we started showing them the questions again at random.

Now, after a student answers every question, they still see the questions again at random, but with a new weighting system that prioritizes questions they answered incorrectly the first time around.

While this doesn't mean your students will only see questions they missed, it does mean they'll be more likely to see those questions.

Thank you to everyone who used our feedback center to request this update!

Read To Me for Gimkit Live

This one was another popular request on our feedback page (and another Fadi project)!

With Read to Me, Gimkit Live questions and answers can be read out loud in the language the Kit was created for.

This improves accessibility in Gimkit Live in a big way. It should also help those of you who use Gimkit with lower grade levels.

I'm so excited that we were able to get this one out to you all — it's been a long time coming!

And That’s It!

Thank you all for another incredible month!

This school year has been especially trying and difficult in a singular way. You’re almost there.

You’re doing amazing work and impacting your students’ lives in ways they’ll carry with them forever. Keep it up and enjoy your (much deserved) summer break! 💜

Read To Me for Gimkit Live

We're excited to release a new accessibility feature for Gimkit Live called Read to Me!

With Read to Me, your students can choose to have questions and answers read aloud.

This should make Gimkit Live more accessible for more of your students, including K-2 students and students with hearing and learning impairments.

Read to Me is controlled by students inside of Gimkit Live. So, as the teacher, there's nothing for you to do, turn on, or select.

Your students can turn Read to Me on and off in-game by clicking the menu on the upper right.

Once they click that menu, the drawer will open on the left of their screen. There's now a little gear icon at the bottom of the drawer.

Students click the gear icon to open up their in-game settings to toggle on/off Read to Me.

As a note, turning on Read to Me has to be done game to game. So, if a student uses it in one game and you play another immediately after, they'll need to turn it on again.

Once Read to Me is turned on, it will start reading the question and answer options out loud, highlighting each as it goes.

Students can click the Read to Me icon up near the top of their screen to have the question and answers read to them again anytime.

If you or your students need more information, we have a how-to helpdesk article with a quick explainer video here.

Have fun and I hope Read to Me helps your students get the most out of Gimkit!

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!

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…

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!

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...🤞

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!

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.

Monthly Update - June 2020

We did June's update a little differently.

This month's video is all me and, rather than go through Gimkit's last month section by section, I focused on current events and sharing a look back at our growth and development over this past school year.

The last month has seen a lot of anger, confusion, and sadness as America seems to be, once again, grappling with racial inequality and injustice in a very real way. In this month's update, we acknowledge the large-scale movement against systemic racism and police violence following the murder of George Floyd.

In this month's update, we also acknowledge the difficult school year that just ended, celebrate educators, and share what the 19/20 school year meant for Gimkit.

Just in this past school year:

• 28 Million educators and students used Gimkit

• Educators and students created 1,440,148 Kits, and

• You all hosted 4,267,776 live games (since October 1, when we started tracking live games played)

I want to extend a huge thank you to our thousands of paying subscribers and the hundreds of schools and districts paying for Gimkit. 100% of our income is from subscriptions, so thank you so much for keeping us going.

With June in the books and summer break officially here, enjoy your summer - this year you REALLY earned it.

Thank you for reading and, if you have a moment, watch our monthly update video for more:

Monthly Update - May 2020

First, I want to congratulate the graduating class of 2020!

Every graduating senior deserves all of the credit and praise the classes before them received. I'm happy to see national celebrations and events honoring this year's graduating class and I'm proud of each graduate. If you or someone you know is graduating high school this year, here's to you/them! 🎓

Second, I'd like to take a moment to tip my cap to every educator, student, and parent.

It's been a school year unlike any other in my lifetime and I may never see another like it. As schools across the country break for summer, I wanted to acknowledge the wild school year and the incredible job educators and students and parents have done riding it out together. You all are an inspiration to us. Here's to a much-deserved summer break! ☀️

Last, but not least, and the initial reason I started typing this post, I wanted to let you know what we've been up to in the past month. Since our last update, we've been:

• Adding in updates to Assignments and Classes to improve ease of use from a distance

• Helping educators effectively use Assignments and Live Games remotely

• Assisting educators, schools, and districts with their Gimkit access as they navigate school closures, changes to instruction, and more

• Celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week with access to every Game Mode! 🥳

• Working on a new product, Ink, which we announced May 12th

• Building a new version of Assignments that's better designed for distance learning

For more on what we've been working on, here's our monthly update video: