5 years ago

New to Ink - Student Commenting

The most requested Gimkit Ink update is out now!

Now, when a student publishes a post in Ink, other students can leave comments. This makes 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!

Visit our blog for a quick run-down of how student commenting works in Ink!

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

5 years ago

Updates to Draw That!

It's been so awesome seeing you all try out our new game mode Draw That! We've made some updates from your feedback...here they are!

🖼️ Draw That Student Art Gallery

Since the release of Draw That, we've loved seeing all your students' artwork. So...we made a place specifically for that art to be shared!

The Draw That Student Art Gallery showcases the latest art from classes across the world. You can visit it right here: https://www.gimkit.com/draw-that

Want to publish your student's art to the gallery? At the end of a game, click View Drawings and then Publish next to the piece you want to share. Just note that publishing art to the gallery is only available to paying customers (or those covered by group subscriptions) for safety reasons.

🙈 Hide Everything

We've added a new Blank option under Term Reveal. With this selected, nothing in the term will be revealed until the very end. No students will be able to tell the number of letters or spaces in the term.

🔀 Shuffle Those Terms!

We've released an update that ensures once a term is drawn, it cannot be drawn again until you go fully through the term list.

😊The Smaller Details...

We've also added an option to disable the symbol keyboard, as well as an option for the drawer to hide the term as they draw (so other students don't peek)!

5 years ago

New game mode -- Draw That!

We're so excited to share our newest game mode, 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!

Want to learn more about how this mode works? Check out our blog post which will walk you through everything.

Draw That is available for a limited time, so go out there, get those games in, and send us your students' amazing drawings!

5 years ago

Monthly Update - March 2021

🌳 Happy March, everyone!

Here's a quick recap of what we've been up to since our last update back in November:

🗓 2020 highlights
🌋 Forever Modes
🕵️‍♀️ Trust No One
💪 More support
🔎Improved search
✍️ Ink updates

New: Ink Privacy Tags

We just released an awesome quality of life improvement to Gimkit Ink!

When a student publishes their work, you're now able to see if they hid their post or name from other students.

5 years ago

Trust No One Returns!

Trust No One has returned and is now a Forever Mode!

Inspired by Among Us, the objective of this mode is simple: locate the impostors and vote them off the ship!

Students will have to work together, collect evidence, and communicate clearly to vote off the impostors, Before you play, we recommend you read our blog explaining how this mode works. You can give it a read here: https://blog.gimkit.com/blog/trust-no-one

It might sound a little confusing, but your students will get the hang of it quickly. Drop-in, vote those impostors off, and have fun!

5 years ago

Gimkit Ink Is Here!

We're so excited to share that Gimkit Ink is now available to everybody!

No turning things in. No submitting. Ink is all about publishing. Students create posts inside Ink, and they share those with not just you, but each other.

By publishing work, we give students an audience — that makes their learning, work, and creations more authentic. It creates a community around the work, where students can learn from their peers.

Ink handles all the complexities and annoyances with publishing. Privacy, distribution, moderation, feedback, you name it. Ink makes it super easy for student work can be seen by everyone in your class.

We've been working on Ink for a long time, and we're so excited to finally share it with all of you. Ink is fully included with all Gimkit Pro subscriptions.

Go check it out, explore, and have fun. We can't wait to see what your students create!

5 years ago

The Floor is Lava Mode Returns!

Note: Trust No One has left Gimkit Live and will return on February 16th as a Forever Mode.

The Floor is Lava is now available in Gimkit Live as a forever mode!

The Floor is Lava is a fully cooperative mode. Instead of students competing against one another, they'll work together!

Lava is rising by the second and students must work together to stay above it! They'll be constructing a tower, and can purchase builds in the shop to increase the tower's height.

Set new records, get those games in, and have fun!

5 years ago

🌎 Gimkit Is Now Carbon Negative!

Hey everyone, Josh here!

As of 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

-Josh

5 years ago

Forever Modes!

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

Well, starting today, that's happening! We're introducing 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'll be treating mode releases from here on out. Available for a brief period of time at launch, gone for a bit, and then back forever!

To start things off, we've got six Forever Modes. You can now play any of these modes at any time!

Infinity Mode
Boss Battle
Humans vs. Zombies
Super Rich Mode
Hidden Mode
Drained Mode

We'll be adding The Floor is Lava as a Forever Mode on January 19th, 2021, and Trust No One on February 16th, 2021.

Now you've got a bunch of options when you go to play Gimkit Live with your class! Replay some old classics, or try a mode out for the first time.

Hope you and your students enjoy. Happy Holidays!