It can be tough to pick a direction for your educational program’s digital future. One of the first decisions you need to make is whether to jump into the deep end and invest in a full platform—a multi-app solution which can be used for multiple years—or just dip your toes in the shallow by selecting a few stand-alone apps and programs. There are advantages and disadvantages to both:
Full platform-based program (multi-app solution)–
A central online space where your students can use the digital content that you choose to help promote your curricular goals. Example – the Behrman House Online Learning Center (OLC), a learning platform with content built into it.
Advantages:
- Once you complete the initial setup, that’s it! Future semesters for students and teachers will have very little additional set up time.
- You will automatically develop a picture of your students’ progress through their school careers because tracking data is built into each app within the platform.
- If you want all students in the same class to have access to the same app or program, it’s very simple. Only the education director needs to set it up once for everyone.
- You can have online discussions or give out assignments.
- It’s flexible. Having a platform allows you to add all the latest apps and programs to your digital classrooms with ease.
- You can even add your own materials to customize the learning experience for your students.
Disadvantages:
- Initial setup takes more time than with a stand-alone app.
- Management of the system requires more time, and ideally your school should have someone on staff to monitor it.
Stand-alone apps –
Individual programs/apps that each have their own goals and are not connected to one another. Example: Unlimited Alef Bet, to teach decoding.
Advantages:
- Quick setup process.
- Gets you directly to the content you need without having to navigate through a system.
Disadvantages:
- You need to set up and start the registration process over each time you assign a new app.
- Information about student progress on previous apps does not get carried over to your new apps so you can’t get an overall picture of your students’ overall growth through their school careers.
- Each app has a different layout and navigation, so every time you introduce a new app, teachers and students need to learn how to use it.
Behrman House is committed to offering both solutions (the platform we offer is the OLC and standalone apps are here ), so you can choose the strategy that best fits your school and still continue to benefit from our materials.
Additionally, the biggest advantage to using Behrman House stand-alone apps is that we are designing them so your students’ information can later be tied into our OLC platform. That way, if you choose to go from the stand-alone app strategy to the platform strategy later on, you don’t need to start over. It’s just one way we are trying to keep our customers in mind as we develop new products.
And remember, you don’t even need to purchase apps to use the OLC. The platform itself is free. You can create a class at any time for online discussions, to give students access to you own materials online, and to gather student portfolios for projects and other learning experiences.
