Classcraft: Gamifying education to help students succeed
About Classcraft
Classcraft, a Google for Education Build Partner, provides engaging classroom solutions that leverage technology to gamify learning environments for better student outcomes. Classcraft’s solutions aim at improving cognitive and soft skills through innovation and a data-driven approach to learning.
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Contact usClasscraft reimagines the classroom to make learning fun—and accelerates growth as a Google for Education Build Partner.
Google Cloud results
- Helps Classcraft reach schools in 165 countries with marketing and technical support
- Drives evolution in the company’s gamification solutions with extensive Google Workspace integration
- Provides the scalability to capture and rapidly analyze 10 million data points every month
- Offers powerful AI and analytics to make classroom insights more accessible to schools
Engages 6 million students and educators around the world
Launched in 2014, Classcraft is reimagining the classroom, creating more engaging and effective learning environments with gamification. Its solutions are designed to make learning fun by using personalized quests, game-like narratives, and compelling incentives to motivate and connect with students.
“The synergy we have with Google has driven tremendous growth for Classcraft. Through this partnership, we expanded to reach 6 million students and educators in 165 countries.”
—Devin Young, President and co-founder, Classcraft“When you consider all the challenges in a student’s education—factors such as attendance, academic performance, and social and emotional development—many of them come down to engagement in the classroom,” says Devin Young, President and co-founder of Classcraft. “We’re tapping into the cultural phenomenon of gaming to get students excited about going to school and giving teachers the tools to help them succeed.”
Keeping students engaged is a top challenge for educators, and teachers are increasingly seeing immense value in Classcraft’s gamification technology. To keep pace with rising demand and evolve its technology solutions, Classcraft became a Google for Education Build Partner—a decision that has helped expand the company’s footprint in schools around the world.
“The synergy we have with Google has driven tremendous growth for Classcraft,” says Devin. “Through this partnership, we expanded to reach 6 million students and educators in 165 countries. One in three schools in the U.S. has a teacher using Classcraft.”
As a Google for Education Build Partner, Classcraft benefits from joint marketing and sales initiatives with Google Cloud, as well as funding and dedicated technical support. It has been featured center stage with Google at key education and edtech conferences, including the highly influential ISTE Conference & Expo. Moreover, the Google Cloud sales team has been trained on Classcraft solutions, a powerful advantage and great visibility for the startup.
In addition, Classcraft received cloud credits through the partner program, making it an easy decision for the startup to migrate to Google Cloud. The migration is the latest move for Classcraft in its partnership with Google for Education, and the company continues to build on several integrations with Google Workspace for Education, Google Classroom, and Chrome for Education.
A-plus integrations with Google Workspace for Education
Classcraft turns each student’s education into a personalized quest for knowledge with interactive content such as worksheets, maps, videos, and quizzes. A big part of making the experience work seamlessly for both teachers and students is the company’s extensive integration with Google Workspace and Google Classroom, which helps students and teachers organize assignments, boost collaboration, and simplify communication.
“Teachers can reuse lessons they created using Google Classroom and pull them into an exciting narrative in Classcraft, effectively gamifying their existing content,” says Devin. “We’re helping teachers optimize their time and effort in the classroom, getting the most out of work they’ve already done.”
Teachers can import rosters from Classroom, attach Google Drive files to game content, and reward students for assignments directly in Classcraft. Meanwhile, students can use the Classcraft app, available in the Chrome Store, to manage and turn in assignments completed in Google Workspace for Education using Docs or Sheets.
Classcraft and Chromebook rise to the top of the class
Classcraft also offers a gamification solution to help schools roll out Google Chromebooks—a fun and easy way for students to learn key skills and keep up in today’s digital classroom.
“When students use their devices more, schools get greater value from their technology investments,” says Devin. “Plus, there’s a clear benefit for school administrators, as Classcraft saves time and simplifies management.”
One third-party study found that a school using Classcraft to roll out Chromebooks improved students’ active digital citizenship by 89% and saw a 6x increase in advanced, independent work. Students became much more skilled at tasks such as creating Google sites, uploading videos, solving technical problems, and simply taking better care of their devices.
Bonus points for moving to the cloud
While Classcraft’s early focus on Google Workspace integration was essential to building solutions that work in today’s classrooms, its decision to build on Google Cloud has taken the startup to the next stage in its evolution. Not only does the cloud platform provide the scalability to support customers ranging from individual teachers to entire school districts, it gives Classcraft advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics capabilities to build more powerful classroom tools.
“Our interconnected platform effectively captures all points of learning, teaching, and administration, so there’s an enormous opportunity to track student engagement and better understand motivating factors in the classroom,” says Devin. “To deliver those insights to schools, we needed a powerful platform to capture and analyze large volumes of data.”
“We capture about 10 million new data points each month related to school culture and student performance. Our previous infrastructure couldn’t scale to support rapid analysis of all that data. With BigQuery and other Google Cloud tools, we can quickly deliver valuable insights to educators.”
—Stephane Guillemette, Chief Technology Officer, ClasscraftTo that end, Classcraft opted to migrate its database and analytics infrastructure to BigQuery and Cloud Storage.
“We capture about 10 million new data points every month related to school culture and student performance,” says Stephane Guillemette, Chief Technology Officer at Classcraft. “Our previous infrastructure couldn’t scale to support rapid analysis of all that data. With BigQuery and other Google Cloud tools, we can quickly deliver valuable insights to educators.”
As Classcraft migrates its data to BigQuery and Cloud Storage, the startup offers schools even greater opportunities to help students succeed—thanks to rich data that comes directly from their classrooms. The goal is to give teachers and administrators actionable insights into how classroom activities correlate with student performance, attendance, and other key outcomes, so they can see what works and what doesn’t.
“Reports will highlight trends and give teachers recommendations to improve their learning environments,” says Devin. “We built a unique, powerful analytics tool using Google Cloud, and now we’re looking at its AI and machine learning capabilities as well.”
Stephane explains, “We want to use AI Platform to automate analysis, identifying patterns in the classroom and predicting where teachers may run into problems with absenteeism, for example. This can help teachers find better approaches to understanding and managing student behavior.”
“Working with Google for Education, we’ve established a more robust ecosystem of educator services and solutions. It’s a testament to the outstanding journey we’ve been on with Google—and we’re really just getting started.”
—Devin Young, President and Co-Founder, ClasscraftPartnering for better educational experiences
As partners, Classcraft and Google continue to promote enhanced outcomes for schools through technology and innovation, building more progressive solutions that support teachers, students, and administrators.
“We’re committed to helping schools create positive, supportive, and effective learning environments,” says Devin. “Working with Google for Education, we’ve established a more robust ecosystem of educator services and solutions. It’s a testament to the outstanding journey we’ve been on with Google—and we’re really just getting started.”
For more information, please visit the Google for Education Partner website.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Classcraft
Classcraft, a Google for Education Build Partner, provides engaging classroom solutions that leverage technology to gamify learning environments for better student outcomes. Classcraft’s solutions aim at improving cognitive and soft skills through innovation and a data-driven approach to learning.