Key points:

During the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, teachers needed to become resourceful in how they delivered content to students. During this time, students experienced significant change and evolved into a more technologically-dependent group.

This sparked a period when online learning and digital resources gained substantial popularity, and one tool that helps students learn–while also feeling like a game instead of a lesson–is Gimkit.

I am an 8th-grade science teacher in a fairly large district, and I recognize the importance of these engaging and interactive resources to help students build knowledge and continue learning.

What is Gimkit?

To begin with, what is Gimkit? According to a tutorial, “Gimkit is an excellent game-based learning platform that combines fun and education, making it a highly engaging tool for both teachers and students. It works like a mashup of Kahoot and flash card platforms, but with several unique features that set it apart.

“Unlike other platforms, Gimkit allows students to earn virtual currency for every correct answer, which they can use to purchase power-ups, adding a competitive edge that keeps students motivated.”

Gimkit offers so much more than just a game-based learning experience for students–it can be used as an introduction to a lesson, as assigned homework, or as a tool for reviewing.

Building a Gimkit

From the teacher’s side of Gimkit, the platform makes it extremely easy to build lessons for the students to use. When you go to create a lesson, you are given many different options to help with the construction.

Jamie Keet explains: “After establishing your basic Kit information, you will then move onto the fun part–adding your questions! You will be given the option of adding a question, creating your Kit with Flashcards, continuing with KitCollab, adding from Gimkit’s Question Bank, or importing from Spreadsheet.”

Adding your questions is a great way to make sure your students are getting the exact information they have been provided in class, but some of the other options can help with a teacher’s time, which always seems to be scarce.

The option to add questions from the question bank allows teachers to view other created kits similar to their topic. With a few simple clicks, a teacher can add questions that meet the needs of their lesson.

Gimkit as data collection

Gimkit isn’t just a tool for students to gain knowledge and play games; it is also an excellent way for teachers to collect data on their students. As Amelia Bree observes:

“Gimkit reports explained show you both big pictures and small details. The look might change sometimes. But you will usually see:

• Overall Class Performance: This shows the average right answers. It tells you the total questions answered. It also shows how long the game took. It’s a good first look at how everyone understood.
• Individual Student Results: Click on each student’s name here. You see their personal game path. Their accuracy. Which questions did they get right or wrong? Sometimes, even how fast they answered.
• Question Breakdown: This part is very powerful. It shows how everyone did on each question you asked. You see how many got it right. How many missed it? Sometimes, it shows common wrong answers for multiple-choice questions.”

Being able to see this data can help ensure that your students are not just completing the required steps to finish the task, but are also working towards mastering the materials within your class.

When examining the data, if you identify trends related to specific questions or concepts that students are struggling with, you have the opportunity to revisit and reteach these areas.

Conclusion

As you can see, Gimkit isn’t just a tool for students to play games and have fun in class; it is also an opportunity for students to gain knowledge in your lessons while potentially having some fun in the process. Teachers can make creating content for their classes much easier by utilizing some of the built-in features Gimkit provides.

They can collect the meaningful data needed to ensure students are making progress in the areas where they want them to.

Works Cited

Breisacher, J. (2024, October 7). How Teachers Can Use Gimkit in the Classroom (a tutorial). Student-Centered World. https://www.studentcenteredworld.com/gimkit/

Keet, J. (2021, July 9). How to Use Gimkit- Step By Step Guide. Teachers.Tech.
https://teachers.tech/how-to-use-gimkit/

Bree, E. (2025, June 6). Unlock Data-Driven Teaching: Using Gimkit for Meaningful
Assessment Insights. GIMKIT JOIN.
https://gimkitjoin.net/gimkit-for-meaningful-assessment-insights/

As classrooms across America become increasingly diverse, with growing populations of multilingual learners and students from various cultural backgrounds, school districts face a critical challenge: selecting educational technology that truly serves all students.

According to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics, there were 5.3 million English learners in K-12 public schools in the fall of 2021, up from 4.6 million in the fall of 2011. Texas had the highest amount, at 20.2 percent.

The traditional approach of choosing tools based on ease of use, efficiency or cost is proving inadequate for today’s multicultural learning environments.

“Technology is not neutral,” says Joshua Jonas, a curriculum and instruction researcher at Baylor University and former high school teacher. “It either amplifies equity or widens gaps, depending on how it’s selected and integrated.”

This fundamental shift in thinking is driving districts to move beyond asking “Will it work?” to asking “Will it work for whom?”

The stakes are high. As UCLA professor Tyrone Howard notes, districts must be mindful of neurodivergence and cultural differences in learners, recognizing that tools often cater to dominant culture norms while excluding multilingual learners and students from non-Western pedagogical traditions. The result: We end up leaving the same kids behind, only faster.

Set Up a Framework

Forward-thinking districts are adopting systematic approaches to culturally responsive edtech selection. The Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems (CITES) encourages technology leaders to define an inclusive technology vision, gather community feedback and define shared roles before diving into tool selection.

Mia Laudato, CITES’ co-project director, recommends starting with one of CITES’ six self-assessment tools.

“If you really want to change your ecosystem, you need to look at your overall ecosystem,” she says. “Start with the leadership assessment and ask other district leaders to take it too.”

After you’ve completed the assessments, discuss your strengths and challenges, prioritize key areas and determine goals.

“Implementation often fails when we go straight to student outcomes because we have to change adult behaviors first,” says Laudato. “Districts must get buy-in from a multidisciplinary team, including a family representative, on a shared, inclusive technology vision, and develop a strategic implementation plan before selecting tools.”

Evaluate Vendors

With 17 percent of its 12,700 students classified as English language learners as well as a significant refugee population, Jenks Public Schools in Oklahoma used the CITES framework to develop a robust vendor-evaluation process.

“We ask vendors to take our survey for curriculum tools that specifically looks at accessibility,” says Samantha Reid, educational technology coordinator. “It has to be AA rated or we don’t buy it.”

Last year, Jenks did a pilot with Talking Points, a family engagement and communication platform that offers automatic translation in the language a family chooses.

“We liked that the platform has human translators, particularly for our large population of Zomi students from Burma. Zomi is so small that it doesn’t exist in [typical formatted] translation,” says Reid.

Reid says that thinking about technology to serve all students has transformed the way she collaborates with her district’s assistive technology team. “We meet weekly to do things together. Our tight bond helps every student.”

The 3Cs of Inclusive Edtech

Debbie Tannenbaum, a school-based tech specialist for Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, supports an elementary school in which 40 percent of the students’ initial language is not English. She looks for technology that can help students become creators versus consumers and for tools that incorporate a framework she developed called the “3Cs”:

• Choice: Tools should provide multiple ways for students to access and share learning, such as through audio, drawing, dictation or video. When one of Tannenbaum’s first-grade multilingual learners discovered he could create videos using Wixie instead of doing traditional math worksheets, his entire attitude toward learning transformed. “He’s just finished third grade and is different because he has access to tools like that,” says Tannenbaum.
• Collaborative: Digital tools must provide opportunities for students to work together in virtual spaces, respecting different comfort levels and communication styles while building essential 21st-century skills. “Ultimately, students need to know how to interact in digital and analog spaces. We don’t want students always working on their own because in the workforce people work together.”
• Clickable (User-Friendly): Icons and interfaces should be intuitive, with visual and textual cues side by side to support multilingual learners who may recognize pictures before words. Tannenbaum teaches icons first.

Equity-Centered Teams

Districts intent on choosing inclusive technology should form diverse evaluation teams that include teachers, directors of multilingual learner services, special education specialists, parents, community members, and even student representatives.

Kelly Forbes, a former newcomer teacher and Title III director who is now a district consultant, says that one of the keys is understanding the people you’re serving.

“Invite parents of your multilingual students to the table,” he says. “Let them be leaders in the committee. Have someone who doesn’t speak English be on the committee and hire an interpreter.”

Because most educators don’t live in the zip codes they serve, community input is essential for understanding local needs and cultural contexts.

Six Steps to Success

The shift toward culturally responsive edtech selection requires more than policy changes; it demands a reimagining of how districts approach technology decisions. But this hard work enhances everyone. As Forbes says, “When we do this, we all rise.”

The technology becomes a bridge rather than a barrier, supporting students in expressing their knowledge while maintaining connections to their cultural and linguistic heritage.

Jonas and his colleagues at Baylor developed a six-step technology evaluation for equity framework.

1. Know your students beyond the numbers: Understand languages, cultures, learning preferences and existing barriers.
2. Build a culturally responsive evaluation team: Include diverse voices in decision-making.
3. Compare with similar districts: Learn from districts with comparable demographics.
4. Pilot with equity in mind: Collect feedback specifically from multilingual learners and families.
5. Embed equity in procurement: Make cultural responsiveness a formal requirement.
6. Create feedback loops: Monitor effectiveness in the first 60 days of implementation.

By Yi Wonju

SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) — A parliamentary committee on Thursday passed a bill that classifies artificial intelligence (AI)-generated educational resources as “education materials” rather than official textbooks, rolling back the previous administration’s plan to introduce AI digital textbooks nationwide.

During the committee’s plenary session, the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the minor Rebuilding Korea Party passed the bill amid resistance from the main opposition People Power Party (PPP).

“The DP is not against AI textbooks themselves,” DP Rep. Baek Seung-ah said at the session. “We are against the fact that an enormous amount of money, budget and efforts were put into creating textbooks with such low quality.”

The DP said it came to the decision to pass the revision to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act after sufficient deliberation and discussions under the current administration.

PPP lawmakers denounced the ruling party’s move as a setback for classroom innovation, despite the global shift toward AI-based learning.

They also criticized the DP for scrapping a major policy overnight just because of a change in administration, arguing that AI textbooks are meant to promote equal educational opportunities for the underprivileged.

The bill earlier passed the Assembly under the previous Yoon Suk Yeol administration but was scrapped after a presidential veto.

The DP is seeking to pass the revision at a plenary session scheduled for July 23.