Avis clients sur Top Hat

Excellent for its purpose in education

Commentaires : Overall, I have had positive experience with the platform and I would encourage educators to at least take a look and decide if it suits for you. There is no 'one size fits all' approach in higher education.

Avantages :

I have used the platform for years. Started using it to take attendance, but then transitioned to a more inclusive approach. What I like the most is that you can setup your lecture flow with PowerPoints, include quizzes/assessment points throughout, include videos (or other multimedia), and export grades/attendance at the end. There are a lot of small features that can be catered to individual faculty needs, such as types of questions, integration, etc. Their tech support is excellent! They helped me transition my course to tophat in no time.

Inconvénients :

I liked everything about the platform as it suited my needs. My only issue is the pricing model where the students have to pay for access individually. Not all of my students have the means to pay for access (which can really impact their grade if they don' use the platform). However, there is a discount if the platform is used in multiple classes. I also think they have site licenses, too.

Engaging Audience response system (and more)

Avantages :

Fairly intuitive for users; flexible; offers a lot of functionality in one application; responsive development team that frequently updates (new functionality and fixes)

Inconvénients :

Development has had a pretty narrow view of the use cases; they didn't seem to anticipate all the different scenarios that might occur in a Higher Ed environment.

Could be great, but app has persistent bugs

Commentaires : My overall opinion is that the app may be useful for classes that do not involve mathematical symbols, but if you are teaching CS or math courses, I strongly recommend finding another tool. I tried using the app for two years, letting the developers know about the bug, but since they have no plans on fixing the bug and don't say anything about it in the documentation, only use if you don't mind wasting a lot of time messing around with unicode characters (or you don't plan on using commas in any questions!).

Avantages :

The gradebook is very well-designed and students have mostly enjoyed the tool.

Inconvénients :

There is a persistent bug in the app that I have been asking them to fix for almost 2 years. When creating questions using LaTeX code, you cannot use commas. There is a hack-y fix requiring you to use a unicode comma, but it often doesn't work and adds a lot of extra time when creating questions. But, the responses for the company suggest that they have no plans on fixing the bug.

Easy to use and helpful features

Commentaires : Overall I am pretty happy with Top Hat. It would definitely fall in the upper end of programs I have used. The students also seem to enjoy it as well.

Avantages :

I was able to log into Top Hat and immediately start using it without any training. It’s a pretty intuitive site. Seeing the grades and attendance is straightforward and has been easier to edit than other programs that I have used.

Inconvénients :

When students are submitting their quizzes or comments there is major lag time and I am not sure if that is because of the software or internet connectivity. I am never entirely sure if I know how many people have turned in their questions. Until about 3 minutes after the questions is over. Also, I wish there was a way to edit slides when they are posted into Top Hat because when I upload sometimes the slides become distorted and I need to make the text smaller or rearrange it so that it fits on the screen and can be read. Also, sometimes the link to videos do not work.

Testing my students

Commentaires : I could not run in class quizzes without this software. It has made this part of the course easy to administer.

Avantages :

This software has made giving in class quizzes very easy. I use it every semester and have had a great experience with administering the quizzes and grading them. It has made it easy to go over material and to provide immediate feedback.

Inconvénients :

I would like them to add a feature that allows for grading of word answers. I have to look at all the different spellings of a word. It would be nice to have a wild card or contains option for answers

It works, but isn't the most cost effective solution

Avantages :

Students answer questions in real time and the percentages of what answers were chosen can then be displayed.

Inconvénients :

As a student who had to use the software, the cost can be annoying. You have to pay based on how long you think you'll need the software, which you won't always know if you're not sure whether future classes will use the software. For example, you might decide to pay for 1 years use because it's "cheaper" over time, but you only ended up having a class use it for 3 months. So you wasted money paying for the rest of the subscription and the company gets more money from struggling college students. And of course, the opposite could happen where you pay for 1 quarter, then another classes uses it and you'd have to pay for it again. Before Top Hat came along, iClicker was the more commonly used tech and does the same job. With iClicker, you only had to pay one time for the remote and then you could sell the remote to another student, which was much more cost effective for students.

Oh the frustration

Avantages :

Maybe it's because it was a 12pm physics lecture and no one wanted to be there, including the technology, but Top Hat was a hit-or-miss most of the semester. I cannot speak for the professor in this case, but this was my experience as a student. We used Top Hat for attendance, poll questions, and short quizzes between slides. Attendance tracking utilizes location to some extent, but if you have the code and time, you can check into class without being there. Our professor caught people checking in remotely; but we also found out that there were dead spots where people in the very room could not check in. That led to tons of handwritten attendance sheets. Also quizzes within the slides often glitched out and had to be restarted or they randomly deleted the annotations. The lecture hall was 200~220 people.

Inconvénients :

Glitchy with large amount of people; Attendance not always accurate

Top Hat Student Review

Commentaires : It has helped me so much with this class. It has given me a new way to go about grasping the material and I would highly suggest it to other people.

Avantages :

I used it in my economics class, and we had embedded questions within our chapters. It really makes you slow down to understand and grasp the concepts.

Inconvénients :

We had problems with being able to go back and view which questions were answered correctly or incorrectly. I also wish there were more functions like notes and bookmarks along with the highlighting.

Use a different platform if you can

Avantages :

Similar in functions and features as other learning platforms once you can figure it out. I personally don’t have any other pros for this product.

Inconvénients :

I wouldn’t recommend Top Hat I feel like there are other learning platforms that are easier to use for both the instructor and student. I had top hat as a learning platform in a few of my university courses and I never got the hang of using it.

Easy to Use Learning Tool

Commentaires : Top Hat is a wonderful asset to have, and I'm glad my professors have been utilizing it. It has increased the regularity and clarity of communication between myself and my professors.

Avantages :

When it comes to student/professor education software, I have found, as a student, that my favorite software programs are ones that professors are able to access and utilize with ease. The reason for this is that when professors utilize the functions available on education software, my life gets easier. Instead of dealing with streams of AOL emails, I get succinct and clean information and communication through a user-friendly platform. My professors who use Top Hat are VERY comfortable with it and seem to maximize its potential. Top Hat is easy for me to use, and it's evidently really easy for my professors to use. It's clean, sleek, and really user-friendly. Also, I like how Top Hat is device-friendly; their mobile app is great.

Inconvénients :

I've been using it for a few months and have not yet run into anything that I have a problem with. Everything's been great so far.

Top Hat

Commentaires : Overall, Top Hat is easy to use and seems to make life easier for professors. However, it is not the most cost effective for students who must pay out of pocket for the service each time their classes require it.

Avantages :

Top Hat is easy for both me and my professors to use. It's clean, sleek, and extremely user-friendly. Top Hat is also device-friendly and I've had a great experience using the mobile app on my iPhone. I like that my professors are able to embed questions within our lectures, which aids in my learning and makes sure I am understanding the material being presented in the lectures.

Inconvénients :

As a student, my least favorite thing about Top Hat is the pricing. Although my classes require Top Hat, the cost is not covered by university tuition and class fees. In addition, Top Hat makes you pay based on how long you will need the software. You can pay for an entire year, which would end up cheaper if most of your classes use Top Hat. However, you may end up paying for the entire year when you only need it for 3 months if only one of your classes requires it.

top hat for organic chemistry

Commentaires : I have been using Top Hat for last 3 years, it makes my in-person and online quizzes and exams go smoothly.

Avantages :

It is very convenient to design online quizzes and exams using top-hat. I use this for my organic chemistry classes, it is easy to draw the chemical structures

Inconvénients :

students complaint little bit about pricing, honestly it is not that expensive, otherwise it is user friendly software.

Very good for large classes to increase participation

Avantages :

It allows you to take attendance with a unique code so only the people present get credit. It very efficiently collects answers to questions and gives the lecturer immediate feedback on whether the class understands the material.

Inconvénients :

It was complicated to use which has given a few people some trouble

Great Quiz Tool

Commentaires : Very fast and fun audience response tool to use in a classroom setting.

Avantages :

Top Hat is very interactive application that the audience can easy connect to with any device and is simple for them to use.

Inconvénients :

Top Hat does not get very customizable with what you may or may not want to do with it. Otherwise not many complaints.

Not good

Commentaires : The software itself is a very good idea. Cannot get over the fact that it does not explain things in-depth very well, and the amount of blatant errors is astounding.

Avantages :

Easy to use in class, and the overall accessibility is good.

Inconvénients :

SO MANY TYPOS AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS. "Loose" instead of "lose"? "Wenn" instead of "when"? "Less" instead of "fewer"?? Incomplete sentences, and many many many more issues ranging from awkward phrasing, to homophone misuse, to use of "words" that are not even a part of the English language (such as my earlier example, "wenn" was literally in this published educational textbook. I expect literally the bare minimum (correct English grammar and spelling) from an expensive, high level, educational publication, and I couldn't even get that.

Top Hat "On Top" of my List

Commentaires : Top Hat is a great application for teachers in managing quizzes. It is a user-friendly app for learners where in they can go through their lessons with ease.

Avantages :

Top Hat is an excellent software! I could easily give quizzes to my learners and give ratings to them easily. It is very user-friendly and bery accessible to learners for its mobile app feature.

Inconvénients :

Going back to view questions which were answered correctly and incorrectly were quite difficult. I wish this app would have commands like bookmarking and highlighting notes on it.

Attendance

Commentaires : My school uses this to take attendance and for quiz questions. The user can view their scores on quizzes or attendance through the app or website.

Avantages :

In addition to taking attendance, you can add questions, polls, slides, etc.

Inconvénients :

Although used to take attendance, you can get around this. If someone sends you the code for attendance, you can still be marked present while not actually attending.

When free options are available on the market, it is a shame that this company swindles instructors

Commentaires : The customer service, in my limited experience, has been great. However, I really hate that I had to pay for something like this when it was in no ways innovative and when so many free competitors exist.

Avantages :

Simplistic design that is easy to navigate

Inconvénients :

The cost is insane for something that is essentially an iClicker. The location-dependent attendance code input has consistently been terrible. This company swindles instructors into forcing their students to buy the product, by making it a required component of the course marks.

Absolute mess of a service

Commentaires : Awful service, awful and sassy customer service, overall just disappointed. Sad I had to pay for this through my wallet and my GPA.

Avantages :

Nothing. I guess you could say it costs less than others.

Inconvénients :

It's broken all the time. It's not intuitive. It leaves students no clear way to access the service, let alone study materials or even tests and assignments. There's nothing this service can do that free services like Socrative can't do.

Top Hat is one of my top choices for student engagement

Commentaires : Overall, I really like TopHat and would recommend it for presentations/education.

Avantages :

Top Hat is very convenient to use. My professors love it and all students love it too. It is engaging but not tedious. You can access it from your mobile or laptop.

Inconvénients :

Sometimes the software lags behind which can be annoying especially since everything is happening live.

TopHat

Avantages :

Easy to use and navigate. Love the top hat questions feature. Customer service is quick.

Inconvénients :

Had a few technical errors which can be annoying

badly flawed and expensive

Commentaires : Top Hat breaks or disconnects all the time. We all hate this thing. It's really expensive.

Avantages :

Ability to use phones can use my laptop in class

Inconvénients :

Interface is buggy my grades don't show up in blackboard and canvas. I have to complain to the professor every week to get my grades corrected. my friend dropped the class because of this program. students who don't show up to lecture are still answering quiz questions -- so what's the point? really expensive. why am I paying for software when the university already has a program that does this stuff?

Top Hat is at the Top of its class

Commentaires : Out of all of the educational programs I have used, Top Hat is by far my favorite. It is easy and allows students to text in answers as well as answer on the app.

Avantages :

It is easy to use and input answers in. It also has phone number that can be texted, which makes answering questions easier.

Inconvénients :

Sometimes the software lagged or delayed. This made answering difficult questions harder because time might expire more quickly.

Easy way to participate in class

Commentaires : I wish it were easier to view past questions or that there were some way to access the information presented with tophat at a later date, but overall is has been a very useful tool.

Avantages :

I like the fact that this software allows you to answer anonymously in class, so I am not worried about getting an answer wrong and I am more likely to participate. The app itself is also very user friendly.

Inconvénients :

I have noticed a few glitches with using this software, but nothing to keep me from not using it.

Used as an Assistant to the Professor

Avantages :

I like that it is an easy and accessible way to share books, assignments and other content with the class. It's much easier then trying to share everything via email or printout.

Inconvénients :

My only issue that I've had is that when the professor is doing a presentation I am unable to go in and do anything else on the class page even though she is presenting from a separate computer.