#1 most frequent
United States of America
76.2%93 installations of 122
What is Top Hat?
Toronto-based Top Hat offers their higher education teaching apps, comprising Top Hat Classroom supporting flipped classroom and gamified lessons, Top Hat Textbook for delivering course content, Top Hat Assignment for customizable quizzes and graded tasks or homework, and Top Hat Test for delivering secure tests with auto-grading and reporting.
Categories & Use Cases
Videos
Who Buys & Uses Top Hat
#2 most frequent
Canada
9.0%11 installations of 122
#3 most frequent
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
2.5%3 installations of 122
Top Hat brought life to my classroom!
Pros
- I use Top Hat as a discussion tool where the students can write what they have learned or what they haven't.
- Exams are taken in class and are totally paperless with grades available immediately.
Cons
- It would be great if the exams could have settings to set-up start and finish times.
- The grade book still needs improvement in the formatting.
Return on Investment
- Students are paying less for their course material
- Increased student participation.
Alternatives Considered
Intelliclick
Top Hat Review
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Used in a course as a standalone learning management system platform which was used for courses where students login to collect, download, and access course contents. Lecture slides and presentations are posted to the class site platform for students. There are a few interactive applications and tools, for example polls and checkpoints, which were utilized to help with student engagement.
Pros
- Offers a good variety of interactive tools such as polls and quizzes
- It is relatively easy to create and customize pages on the class site
- Educators have access to good analytics and insightful performance information
Cons
- When creating polls/quizzes a way to make it a bit easier to build from templates
- More prompt and guided support for students
- Some ability for offline updates and updates once logged back online
Most Important Features
- Polls and Quizzes creation
- Data and Class Performance Reports
- Relatively easy or intuitive for educators to use
Return on Investment
- Positive return on investment providing one platform that has many features
- Reduces complexity of requiring to use multiple learning management systems
- Provides good oversight for student attendance with its location feature
Alternatives Considered
Canvas LMS
Top Hat is a worthwhile replacement to Turning Technologies
Pros
- Easy to use.
- Many question types beyond multiple choice.
- Attendance.
- Gradebook syncing.
Cons
- If students are paying, it's a confusing onboarding process for students and instructors and could be better streamlined.
- The Android app not as well polished as iOS.
- A better, free, or ad-supported model might be more palpable to students.
- Integration directly with PowerPoint -- not requiring instructors to upload their slides to Top Hat.
Return on Investment
- One of the better ways to track attendance in a mostly secure and automated way.
- Promotes more active learning, especially in large classrooms.
- Unpopular if students have to pay.