Classcraft: Our DigCitAPPROVED Partners

We are proud to announce Classcraft as part of our 2019 - 2020 DigCitAPPROVED  partners. 
At the Digital Citizenship Institute, personalized learning is the foundation of our core values. We are committed to providing learners of all ages and abilities opportunities to be entrepreneurial, empathetic, inclusive, and innovative as they develop a proactive and positive digital citizenship community mindset. Instead of the one-size-fits-all approach, we want our learners to experience digital citizenship. 
When we started working with Classcraft, we immediately knew our visions were aligned: 

Foster generations of more empathetic, well-rounded human beings who find value and meaning in living and learning together.

What is Classcraft?

“Student motivation is at the root of some of the biggest challenges facing educators today. It’s what drives the outcomes that administrators seek to achieve: social emotional learning, non-cognitive skill development, improved academic performance, and positive school climate.
Classcraft helps school districts reach their potential by promoting and measuring motivation in real time. By harnessing the power of games to motivate students at a systemic level, Classcraft helps administrators advance initiatives like SEL, PBIS and personalized learning.
Classcraft helps educators motivate students by:
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• Developing students’ non-cognitive skills
• Turning existing curriculum into personalized learning quests
• Revealing what’s working and not working through data-driven insights

DigCitAPPROVED Tool and Platform

As we like to say at the Digital Citizenship Institute, Classcraft prepares learners to be #DigCitReady. Classcraft’s mission is to make school more relevant and meaningful by creating playful and collaborative learning experiences that teach the whole child. This APPROVED partnership supports using technology, games, and storytelling to provide local, global, and digital communities to think critically and act creatively, to solve problems and create solutions together. ​

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We believe that the classroom can be reimagined using technology, games, and storytelling to create a learning environment that is culturally relevant to today's youth. Their future is likely to be very different from what we know today. It's our belief that fostering non-curricular cognitive skills like collaboration, empathy, leadership, communication, and self-expression will be a critical piece in helping prepare them for the changes they will face as adults.

One of our very favorite champions for student voice and choice, Steven Isaacs in an interview shared: “ I’ve been a fan of the beautiful interface and game elements of Classcraft for a while. I’ve been following the product since seeing the video of how Shawn turned his class into a game. However, I was pushed right over the edge to implement it once the Quests feature was launched. My class is entirely quest/choice-based, so this feature was essential to using Classcraft with my students.”

DigCitAPPROVED Company Organization

Our goal is to partner with organizations who are well-aligned to transform participants into designers, creative thinkers, global collaborators, problem solvers, and justice-oriented citizens. Through our shared goals to prepare students for a more collaborative and global world, and through leveraging technology for social good, our work together has the potential to drastically impact and change the lives of students across the globe for the better.
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Classcraft does all of this and more. We particularly love their commitment towards privacy and pledges too:  

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We absolutely DO NOT sell student data, in any way, shape or form.
In fact, we are publicly and proactively committed to student privacy and data transparency, as evidenced in our signing of the Student Privacy Pledge, our participation as members of the Student Data Privacy Consortium and our status as a B-Corp.

From a legal standpoint, we are FERPA, COPPA, HIPPA and GDPR compliant and have agreements with schools and districts all over the country, including California and New York, who have some of the tougher privacy laws.
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What's more, our Privacy Policy explicitly states what we use student data for; in a nutshell, we collect student data so that schools may use Classcraft in an effective manner. We even have a "No Marketing to Students and Parents" section in the policy and the policy explicitly states that student data will not be shared out of the School Environment.

Join us on Classcraft if you want to embed digital citizenship while motivating students by making learning seriously fun!

More Classcraft Resources

Classcraft on Vimeo
Classcraft on YouTube
Other Classcraft Resources and Examples in Action
March’s Quest of the Month: Teacher Steve Isaacs’ game design lesson plan
When the Entire Class is a Game
In Classcraft’s Virtual World, Kids Learn Through Gaming — and Look Forward to Coming to School
Classcraft: Transforming the Classroom into a Cooperative Challenge
How to Build an Inclusive Classroom
Research on gamification