Top Hat Reviews

Excellent for its purpose in education

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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)

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.

Poor Customer Support

Comments: It looks like a good program but be wary of the customer support.

Pros:

It looks like a very useful program to engage students in a large class. We wanted to use Top Hat.

Cons:

The sales rep for Top Hat decided to stop replying to emails at critical time in deciding to implement Top Hat. We were even looking into the possibility of implementing Top Hat across the university. If Top Hat no longer wanted to pursue that, they could have at least replied to an email. Another colleague reported having problems with Top Hat personnel.

Top Hat Student Review

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Easy to Use Learning Tool

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Pros:

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.

Cons:

Glitchy with large amount of people; Attendance not always accurate

Use a different platform if you can

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

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

Comments: 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.

Pros:

Simplistic design that is easy to navigate

Cons:

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.

Top Hat is at the Top of its class

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

top hat for organic chemistry

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Top Hat

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Easy to Use

Comments: Easy to use and great way to learn with question along the way. The app did not have all of the functions as the textbook did online. Overall, it is engaging when available.

Pros:

Very clear sections, questions, and due dates. I love that it would tell you what the correct answer was, that ay you are learning rather than wondering what part was wrong. Being able to read aloud and highlight text made it a great learning resource.

Cons:

Submitting answers where the rest of the class could see was uncomfortable. I found that most students skipped those questions to avoid the social anxiety of being wrong in front of everyone. It prevented people from learning and checking their knowledge on concepts.

Could be great, but app has persistent bugs

Comments: 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!).

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Nice platform for class

Comments: Nice and engaging platform

Pros:

Nice way to make classroom environment interesting. Student can actively participate in poll and instructors can know how many people participated in the class. Effective way to track class

Cons:

Need some time to used to it. Instructors need to first understand how to operate this platform. Not effective for the instructors who has limited technology skills for classroom

Testing my students

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

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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

Terrible

Comments: Terrible

Pros:

Has a nice built in quiz option when doing readings.

Cons:

The app would crash over and over again or it would not show entire articles/readings and instead would show me a blank screen. Other times, it wouldn't let me submit work. My professor says she can't program the app to put in correct due dates either making us confused.

Top Hat "On Top" of my List

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Easy way to participate in class

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Great Quiz Tool

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Very good for large classes to increase participation

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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

Great for Use in Higher Education

Pros:

Ease of use, easy to set up and customer service was very helpful in setting up

Cons:

Pricing, so it was subsidized by the school

Not good

Comments: 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.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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.