Top Hat vs. Nearpod

     Though Top Hat and Nearpod are both venues for content delivery and wonderful tools for formative assessment, they have plenty of differences. Top Hat is more geared towards use by college professors and college students. Like Nearpod, Top Hat has the features of asking questions in various formats to record answers of students and pose discussion questions that can be answers. Top Hat has a cool feature of grading the discussion participation either by participation or graded for correctness. Top Hat offers a testing feature (for $10) where you can have tests securely taken on the Top Hat website or app. Top Hat has a whiteboard sketch feature which is great for visual accompaniment for lectures for professors. Like Nearpod, Top Hat has the ability to put presentations online. On Top Hat, they can either attach a file or create a presentation through the 'slides' feature. Like Nearpod, Top Hat allows users to embed questions, discussions, or polls within presentations. Top Hat has a feature that allows professors to link courses with existing online textbooks (with paid membership or additional fees per linked textbook to course). Unlike Nearpod, Top Hat has an attendance feature. Students can 'check in' to lectures so that professors can know who is present.

     Nearpod is a little bit more geared towards the secondary and elementary level. One cool feature that I found on Nearpod that I could not find on Top Hat was virtual field trips. With Nearpod, students can visually take virtual field trips that can be used with virtual technology implements like v.r. goggles. Nearpod offers access to pre-made lesson plans that are arranged by topic, subject, or grade level. When you create lessons, you can add to the collection of resources that can be accessed by Nearpod teachers everywhere. Like Top Hat, Nearpod has the features of presentation where users are able to embed videos, images, websites, etc, without the clicking on a link and the pause of waiting for a website, video, etc. to open. Like Top Hat, Nearpod has formative assessment features such as polls, discussion questions, and quiz questions (of various formats).

	Nearpod	Top Hat
Formative Assessment Features	Teachers can utilize various types of questions (fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, short answer, etc.) that can be embedded into lessons. Results can be displayed for teacher use and for class use. Users can respond anonymously.	Teachers can utilize various types of questions (fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, short answer, etc.) that can be embedded into lessons. Results can be displayed for teacher use and for class use. Users can respond anonymously.
Discussion Features	Students can contribute to discussion questions to create in-depth discussions. Discussions can be embedded in presentations or posted separately.	Students can contribute to discussion questions to create in-depth discussions. Discussions can be embedded in presentations or posted separately. There can be an assessment component of discussions which give students credit for participating or for correctness or a combination of both.
Presentation Features	Users are able to upload previously made presentations into the presentation feature of the app. Users are able to embed pictures, videos, websites, etc. To presentations rather than just linking them. These presentations can be shared with students.	Users are able to upload previously made presentations into the presentation feature of the app. Users are able to embed pictures, videos, websites, etc. To presentations rather than just linking them. These presentations can be shared with students.
Attendance Features	There is no deliberate attendance feature on the app, but a teacher could create a poll or question each day to record attendance.	There is an attendance feature where students can check-in to a given class or lecture. This is very beneficial for professors with extremely large classes and multiple classes.
Virtual Field Trips	Users are granted access to a variety of virtual field trips which can be viewed in collaboration with virtual reality implements.	There is no virtual field trip feature, but videos can be embedded to try to recreate this feature.
Online Lessons	Users are given access to a large number of pre-made lessons which are arranged by topic, subject, and/or grade level. Users can access and use these lessons.	There is no clear sharing of lessons on Top Hat. However, there are pre-made courses geared towards existing textbooks (discussed below).
Linking Lessons to Textbooks	Though there is no inherent linking of course content to existing textbooks, lessons can be created that are geared towards a textbook that a teacher is using.	There are pre-made courses that are already linked to existing college-level textbooks. However, this feature costs money whether you buy a membership for access or pay for an individual course (which professors can ask their students to do).
Whiteboard Sketch	There is a whiteboard sketch feature. Users can create visual how-to's such as working math problems.	There is no whiteboard sketch feature per say, but users can embed videos with visual demonstrations or user other apps and embed results within a given presentation.
Cost	Paid for by students (usually).   $26 – 1 semester  $36 – 1 year  $75 – 4 years  $10 for tests	Many features are free for use of up to 30 students. This app is usually paid for by the teacher, school, or district.   GOLD - $120 per year per teacher