Turn the academic year into one big game season for your class using this online game. Every class activity can be adapted to motivate learners and their teams to give their best. Students form teams consisting of warriors, mages, or healers; they earn rewards and level up in the game. Hence, development in this game has real-life implications for a learner’s academics.

Website: https://www.classcraft.com/

What Users Love About the App

“Several years back, I was looking for an online experience for students that would be engaging. I was also looking for a tool to assist with classroom management and enhance students’ learning experience. This is where ClassCraft shines—especially when they first introduced Quests. Quests became a tool that students would utilize nearly every day in class.”

“I like so many features of this product that it’s difficult to pick out just a few. Mostly, it is the fact that my pupils have never failed to be hooked by the gamification aspect of Classcraft. Even the most unmotivated students get a glint in their eyes and end up modifying their behaviors thanks to Classcraft. The ability to edit and use your own positive and negative behaviors is great. The random student picker—Wheel of Destiny—is great. Random fun events (also editable) is a winner with the pupils. Parent participation is welcomed. Its cool graphics and avatars make this a hit with grade 6 and up as many other types of behavior games seem too babyish.”

“I was looking for a new way to run my classroom and settled on gamification. Minecraft was all the rage, so a quick internet search led me to Classcraft. It seemed like a natural choice, so I decided to set up an account and do some testing. Already in my last unit of the year, I picked a few students to use who I knew would be more than happy to give feedback. I liked that it made things very interactive, that you could start the class with events, use that as a warm-up activity, and that quizzes were like battles. It seemed like it would speak to my 6th graders. The software was slick and a great idea. Finally, the cost for the full version of the product is very reasonable.”

“I love the overall feel. Truly a gamified layout and experience for those seeking to add elements of gamification to their classroom as well as mirror gaming experiences. I also enjoy the option for students to choose their avatars/personas and enhance/upgrade their characters as they gain experience from completing classroom activities/homework/projects/tests, etc. There are even options to have random “daily events” affect the students. Neat feature.”

What Users Dislike About the App

“A lot of moving parts for the teacher to manage. This is to set it and let it do everything. The teacher still needs to leave feedback, apply damage, use events, apply experience points, and more. This isn’t a deal-breaker for me as I gamified my classroom in the past using Schoology, so the manual work I needed to do didn’t scare me off. But this is something to keep in mind as it can be daunting. Maybe if there was a way to make this a little more efficient and automated?”

“While I thought that Classcraft would be just what I was looking for, the free version did not allow me to see the capabilities of the system. I built infrastructure but could not set up events or quests. Even though I set up the students, some students who confirmed their “account” did not show up in the class. Since I was not a paying user, customer support was not very helpful—they were mostly recommending that I upgrade to a paid account because they could assist. I was also unable to integrate well with my Google Drive setup (almost) required by the institution at the time. These things made it very difficult for me to test out the software to petition my department for the funds to upgrade, which I would have done had I been confident that I was going to utilize it enough to justify the cost.”

“I like how it integrates with other online classroom tools such as Google Classroom. Using Moodle, however, I wish it also could integrate with this course management system.”

“I am currently using the free version and would love to upgrade to the full version as it has many amazing features. Unfortunately, accessing the full version outside of the US makes the monthly fee just too expensive for countries like mine with a high US dollar exchange rate.”