Why We Built Google Classroom and SSO Into Rapunzl

We built Google Classroom and single sign-on into Rapunzl because the first week with a new platform is where a lot can go wrong. If students cannot log in on day one, the lesson you planned turns into a help desk. Rapunzl now lets teachers and students sign in with the school Google or Microsoft account they already have, and Google Classroom classes can bring their rosters, assignments and grades along.

Picture the first class period with a new tool. The bell rings, students open their laptops, and the opening stretch of class goes to forgotten passwords, mistyped emails and a class code that half the room copied wrong. Nobody planned a lesson about usernames, but that is the lesson that happens.

That scene is what we set out to remove.

Why does the first week with a new platform go wrong?

The first week goes wrong because getting started asks for work that has nothing to do with learning: creating accounts, typing rosters, handing out class codes and resetting passwords. Each step is small. Together they take time from the lesson, and they land on the teacher.

The friction usually shows up in five places. A student cannot remember which email they used, or the account was never created. A new password for a new tool is easy to forget by the second class period. Building a class list by hand means names, emails and spelling, repeated for every section. A class code has to be shared, copied and entered correctly by every student in the room. And every minute spent on those steps is a minute not spent on the content.

As a company that teaches financial literacy, we did not want our own platform to start a class with an obstacle. I went to Ariel Community Academy in Chicago, where financial literacy was taught from first grade, so I grew up with it as an ordinary school subject. That is the standard we wanted for a Rapunzl classroom: the content starts the moment class does.

What did we build?

We built sign-in with Google and Microsoft, plus a Google Classroom connection that handles rosters, assignments and grades. Here is exactly what is available now, and what is not yet.

The Google Classroom connection has four parts, and each one removes a specific chore:

1. Roster import. Pick your Google Classroom classes and Rapunzl adds the students for you. Nobody types a class list.
2. Roster sync. Rapunzl class lists follow the Google Classroom roster as students join or leave.
3. Assignment sync. An assignment you make in Rapunzl reaches the Google Classroom class.
4. Grade passback. Rapunzl assessment and assignment scores go to the Google Classroom gradebook.

You can see the full feature list on our Google Classroom and single sign-on page, and the details of the launch in our launch announcement. Rapunzl works with Google and Microsoft, and connects to Google Classroom. Those names belong to their companies, and this is not a partnership with or an endorsement from any of them.

How does single sign-on improve security?

Single sign-on improves security mainly by cutting the number of passwords in play. When students and teachers use the school account they already have, there is nothing new to create, remember, reuse or write on a sticky note.

Three things follow from that. First, there are fewer passwords to go wrong: a separate password for every tool tends toward weak, reused or written-down ones, and signing in with the school account removes that pile for Rapunzl. Second, accounts stay school-managed: sign-in goes through the school's own Google or Microsoft account, which the school or district manages. Third, rosters follow Google Classroom: when a student leaves a Google Classroom roster, the Rapunzl class list follows, so it stays matched to the school's own record.

We are careful about how far we take this. Single sign-on is one layer of a school's account practices, not a promise about outcomes, and your district's IT team still decides how accounts are managed. Rapunzl is built to rely on the accounts a school already manages rather than asking everyone to create new ones. District administrators and IT staff can see more on our districts page.

How does it help classroom learning?

It helps by giving instruction time back to the teacher and by letting students start on day one. With nothing to create and nothing to remember, the first class period can begin with the lesson.

For a teacher, the order is short: sign in with Google, connect Google Classroom, pick a class, and the roster comes in. There is no account setup to run for each student, and there are no class codes to hand out for Google Classroom classes. If you teach several sections, each one comes in the same way instead of being rebuilt by hand.

For a student, the first click is the same one they use for everything else at school. They sign in with the school account and land in the work. A student who joins a class mid-year, or a section that gets reshuffled in October, shows up on the Rapunzl class list without anyone retyping a thing.

This matters more for a subject like ours than it might for another. Our simulator gives each student a $10,000 simulated portfolio to practice with, and every minute of that practice lost to a login screen is a minute a student did not spend making and defending a decision. We want the first thing a student does in Rapunzl to be a lesson, not an account form.

What about keeping grades in more than one place?

Grade passback means Rapunzl assessment and assignment scores go to the Google Classroom gradebook, so you do not copy grades between two systems. If your school keeps grades in Google Classroom, that is where Rapunzl scores now land.

A second gradebook has a cost. Every score has to be read in one place, typed into another and checked for mistakes. That work repeats each time an assignment closes, and it is easy to let slip when the week gets busy. Grade passback removes the copy step for Google Classroom classes.

Assignment sync works the same way in the other direction. An assignment you make in Rapunzl reaches the Google Classroom class, so students find it where they already look for work. You are not asking them to remember a second place to check.

Rapunzl still gives you its own view of the work. The Educator Dashboard shows student progress, assessment results, grade export and standards crosswalks. The gradebook you already use gets the scores; the dashboard gives you the detail behind them.

Students in our program moved from a 34% pre-program financial literacy score to 93% after, 26 points above the 67% national average.

What comes next for Clever and ClassLink?

Clever and ClassLink are rolling out. Single sign-on and rostering through Clever and ClassLink will be supported, and we are not announcing a date for either one.

If your district uses Clever or ClassLink, Google and Microsoft sign-in are available now, and Google Classroom works as described above, so ask your IT team which route fits your school today. We will say so when Clever and ClassLink support is ready.

We would rather tell you what is live and what is coming than blur the two. Treat anything we have not marked as available now as a plan, not a feature to build a semester around.

See it in your own classroom

If the first week of a new platform has ever cost you a lesson, we would like to show you what it looks like when it does not. Request a free Rapunzl demo to see the curriculum modules, the simulator and the educator tools.

By Myles Gage, CEO and Co-Founder at Rapunzl.