PlayPosit vs Remind

"Educator must have" What do you like best about PlayPosit Interactive Video? Playposit allows learners to have to stop and process what they are watching through interactive questions. There are many different types of questions that can be added to your video! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about PlayPosit Interactive Video? It will provide a score for students even if some have to be graded by teacher. This can upset a student who sees a score of a 30% for example who really will have a 100% once i grade the fill in the blank. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is PlayPosit Interactive Video solving and how is that benefiting you? I am solving the problem of students not watching a video. Playposit forces them to actually watch it and not skip ahead through the questions. It provides formative data as well!

- Allison G.

PlayPosit is an interactive video platform. It allows instructors to overlay engagement questions on videos so that every video has enforced pause points that require some action from the viewer. Since the questions are overlaid on the video, they are “separate” from the video file and can be overlaid on your own videos or others. This allows you to easily revise questions, recycle videos, and pull in content created by other people. Engagement questions can take many forms in PlayPosit, but I typically use close-ended auto-graded questions (like true/false, multiple-choice, or multiple answer). Although PlayPosit does allow for asynchronous polling and open-ended responses, those questions require “hands-on” grading, and I find those questions are better suited for other activities (such as discussion boards or synchronous class sessions).

- Leslie Abell

When it comes to the software available to faculty in the Digital Backpack, the sky’s the limit on what can be accomplished, says Diana Fordham, an instructional designer in the Distance Learning department. “There’s so much available digitally now,” she says. “If you want to take a virtual tour of the Louvre, you can. These tools are game-changers for online education.” With students making use of virtual and HyFlex courses during the pandemic, the Digital Backpack – made possible through CARES Act funding – allows instructors to use programs such as Yellowdig, VoiceThread, Nearpod, EdPuzzle, Camtasia and others to create engaging and productive learning environments during this challenging period. Another tool available is PlayPosit, an interactive video platform which Fordham has used to administer authentic assessments in Southern courses. The company recently spotlighted her experience with their product and the opportunities she saw for use in a writing-intensive course. During a Western Civilization course she taught last fall, she utilized PlayPosit to present documentaries on historical figures along with supplemental resources, which students then used to create short essays. The interactive session, called a “bulb,” gave students everything they needed to complete the assignment. “These authentic assessments have students really engage with the material,” she says. “No one can cheat, and it enhances the integrity of the course.” Fordham says she received positive feedback from her students, and the company recently reached out to interview her about her experience with the platform. “PlayPosit is great,” she says. “We meet with them monthly to create new things and troubleshoot … we’re being proactive instead of reacting,” she says. “We have training and support and if there’s something I don’t know how to answer or how to fix, I know I can immediately call them for help on the technical side.”

- Diana Fordham

They've recently changed the character count so even individual messages are limited to 140 characters. The 140 character limit for whole group announcements was Remind's biggest flaw - making that applicable to individual messages as well means it is not longer useful at all. I can't limit all my communications with students to 140 characters and I can't ask them to receive 2 or 3 or more texts every time we communicate. I will be researching and finding another service for the fall. (It also sucks that they are implementing this in the middle of the school year.

- Amanda H.

"Effective Solution for Large Group Communication" What do you like best about Remind? Remind is an effective and easy-to-use solution for large group communication. The ability to schedule messages ahead of time as well as add and remove people from groups easily makes it ideal for our setup. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Remind? You cannot remove group leaders from a group even after they have left the organization. It requires us to start a new group when one of the leaders leaves. This makes it difficult when we have new leaders every year. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Remind: Remind meets all of our needs for large group communication. It is moderately priced and works well for our educational setup. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Remind solving and how is that benefiting you? We are solving the problem of getting messages and links out to everyone quickly. This allows us to avoid large group texts, especially with and without iphones. It will enable us to send messages without bothering everyone with responses.

- Caleb N.

"Two-Way Communication Messages with Remind" What do you like best about Remind? Remind allows our school and district personnel to communicate with parents and other community members through text messages. I like that the product can auto-translate messages into other languages based upon the end-user's preferred language. I also like that the product enables me to schedule outgoing messages. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Remind? I wish the product allowed me to schedule messages at the district level. I can currently schedule outgoing messages at the individual schools, but that requires me to copy and paste my content into the platform several times if I want to broadcast district-wide. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Remind solving and how is that benefiting you? We can communicate with our stakeholders via two-way messaging, giving us the ability to send messages and answer any questions related to that outgoing content. Since Remind uses SMS text messages, we can often contact parents and caregivers who we could not reach by phone or email in the past.

- Chris S. Director of IT