Pearson Revel vs. Top Hat

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Revel
Score 4.0 out of 10
N/A
Revel from Pearson supports students with note taking, assessments, and other classroom tasks, and integrates with commonly used LMS.N/A
Top Hat
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
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.
$30
per term (4 months) per student
Pricing
Pearson RevelTop Hat
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Pro
$30
per term (4 months) per student
Basic
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
RevelTop Hat
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Pearson RevelTop Hat
Considered Both Products
Revel
Chose Revel
In my opinion, McGraw-Hill Connect is by far much better than Pearson Revel. It has more functionality. I think the McGraw-Hill SmartBook is better than the Pearson Revel (which is merely a reading app). The SmartBook allows instructors customization and it helps students to …
Chose Revel
I have used Pearson MyPsycLab in the past. I believe it was a better overall product than the REVEL system because the text and learning activities were separated, Students could view the text, then complete the activities. Overall, I think that both printed texts and …
Top Hat
Chose Top Hat
Top Hat generally stacks up pretty well against other industry leading or popular learning management systems. Top Hat is comparable to learning management systems used in most educational institutions. The features such as allowing the educator to create an interactive …
Chose Top Hat
Turning Technologies' bread and butter was its rock-solid integration with PowerPoint and physical devices. Their move to the cloud was a very rocky road and opened the door to Top Hat who was a cloud-first solution. Overall Turning Technologies was better at ensuring every …
Best Alternatives
Pearson RevelTop Hat
Small Businesses
Renaissance Accelerated Reader
Renaissance Accelerated Reader
Score 9.9 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Renaissance Accelerated Reader
Renaissance Accelerated Reader
Score 9.9 out of 10
Ellucian Banner
Ellucian Banner
Score 2.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Renaissance Accelerated Reader
Renaissance Accelerated Reader
Score 9.9 out of 10
PeopleAdmin Higher Ed Platform, from Powerschool
PeopleAdmin Higher Ed Platform, from Powerschool
Score 7.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Pearson RevelTop Hat
Likelihood to Recommend
4.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Pearson RevelTop Hat
Likelihood to Recommend
In my opinion, Pearson Revel isn't a bad product. It works as intended. However, the customer service at Pearson Revel is very poor (at least based on my personal experience. Others may have better success with their customer services). I tried to contact the Pearson representative numerous times via email and phone calls to set up Pearson Revel for my class. In my experience, the representative never returned my emails or phone calls. I am very disappointed by their lack of customer support.
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I think Top Hat can be used in any classroom size to help student learning. it is user-friendly for both students and teachers.
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Pros
  • Ease of assigning reading
  • Ease of tracking level of student engagement
  • Ease of use for instructors
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  • 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
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Cons
  • Unfortunately, there are some videos that do not play, or situations where the video does not match the question content. These are bugs that should be attended to by Pearson, but although I have reported them (along with students), they have not been remedied.
  • Instructors who would prefer to use only the digital text do not have the option to purchase the text without the platform.
  • Because the text and software are integrated, there are no "page numbers" as in other digital texts which makes it hard to reference a particular section in a lecture, assignment, or presentation.
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  • 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.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
The initial rollout of Top Hat was not without its issues. Top Hat was very responsive, and even sent representatives to be onsite during the first couple of days of the start of class to help instructors and students. They were very knowledgeable about the product, but the sales team was pushy at times. At several times, we had to inform them not to reach out to instructors directly to pitch their service while we were still piloting.
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Alternatives Considered
I have used Pearson MyPsycLab in the past. I believe it was a better overall product than the REVEL system because the text and learning activities were separated, Students could view the text, then complete the activities. Overall, I think that both printed texts and systems like REVEL will be obsolete in the near future as content is readily available on the internet at no cost to the student.
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Top Hat generally stacks up pretty well against other industry leading or popular learning management systems. Top Hat is comparable to learning management systems used in most educational institutions. The features such as allowing the educator to create an interactive experience by leveraging tools such as quizzes and polls is comparable. Data on student performance is also a helpful feature that is comparable to that of other similar learning management systems.
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Return on Investment
  • NEGATIVE: The platform is less expensive than a printed text, but students can use OER's for free. This is especially important at the community college level where students tend to have less financial resources for education.
  • NEGATIVE: After the course completes, the student has nothing to use as a reference. They cannot go back and view the content, nor can they print any of the content.
  • NEGATIVE: The student pays for the learning platform and content which includes a large number of activities and resources. While this seems to be a positive thing, students (and instructors) can get overwhelmed with the number of activities and resources available. Some students won't use any of the resources at all.
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  • 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.
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