Articulate 360 vs. Renaissance Accelerated Math

I am not a fully trained instructional designer, but I found the user experience to be enjoyable. I have crafted my own revision of a course using Articulate 360 and while the process was lengthy, I found edits and changes to be relatively easy to implement. I also had a great deal of fun making tweaks, organizing and adding imagery. I think with regard to creating online courses/products for students to utilize, this is a great program and serves several levels of instructional design well (from me being brand new to this, to my supervisor who is newly certified, up to a longtime LD). I don't know that this is wholly relevant to courses that are live, be they in-person or virtual (Zoom webinars for example). Most of the material created in Articulate 360 tends to sit on the side of an on-demand, at-your-own-pace as far as coursework is concerned. A live course with an instructor, while it could be utilized in a live setting, the way it would be used I am unsure would be as dynamic or worthwhile as other more traditional options.

It's great for practice but not as good as other programs with lessons that support students when they get into trouble. I'd prefer a video to pop up for students to review when they bomb a particular practice. I'd like them to watch the video and then do the lesson again. After that, if they need help they should come to me. That is one thing I like better about Moby Math. I also like Moby better at identifying and providing missing skills that are below grade level. With Renaissance Accelerated Math, I have to separate students into a variety of banks. That is time-consuming and may not specifically target all the skills that a student needs or does not require.

• Rise is clean and professional. It looks polished to users and is easy for learners to follow.
• They have outstanding support.
• Storyline allows you to create some very engaging intricate interactive learning.
• Generally, their products are user friendly.
• They are considered the Gold standard in elearning authoring.
• Their courses can be read on phones, tablets computers. etc.
• They also have a powerpoint add in for making really nice slides.
• Their review tool, allows you to easily send the courses to reviewers who can update in course.

Incentivized

• “Kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care.”
• One of the very first things I learned my first five years of teaching, except that student teaching does not really prepare you, is that it is my job to help my students succeed, not to just give them a grade. In the beginning, I taught the lesson, assigned work, administered tests, and took grades. I did that because that is how we are supposed to determine efficiency. Right? No, Wrong. I learned this the hard way and, sadly and regrettably, at the expense of my students at that time. Over time, I noticed how sometimes it took re-teaching along with small group instruction and interventions for students to understand and master the concepts. Since then, I have allowed for them to fix, re-do, and re-re-do their work, as needed.
• I focus on my interventions just as much as I do my initial teaching of the objective. Making sure that they truly understand and master the content before moving on to another objective helps me just as much as it helps them. It saves me from continually re-teaching. Slow and steady does win the race. This approach allows me to help the student master objectives with more efficiency.
• Accelerated Math has allowed for me to individualize my instruction and interventions. I love this program. Truly! I have three types of students; above, on target, and below. This program allows for growth in each area. However, I have found the most growth in my bottom quartile. Why? I believe it is because I am able to recognize a problem or issue with a particular objective immediately. I, then, can address that issue immediately before the bad habits or wrong approach is repeated.
• This program is masked as a whole-group classroom approach, however, the most important components are found under the mask. One-on-one instruction is how I describe it to educators. My students are actively engaged in their own learning. They are also actively engaged in the learning of their peers, as well. I use a lot of peer tutoring techniques. They have access to knowing who is also working on mastering the same objective(s) they are working on plus they know who has already mastered said objective. This allows them to know who to go to for effective help. They are able to steer their own learning to a point. They can ask a peer or me. They can get on Accel math and look at the objective and see completed answers for a reference. This also boosts the confidence of their own understanding. They feel confident in having control of the path they want to use for gaining knowledge. Peer-tutoring and peer-discussions give them the opportunity to say out loud what they are thinking/feeling about a concept and rationalize their approach to evaluating said concept. As the teacher, I play various roles. I can teach, facilitate a small group, or just be an observer. A lot of times, I just ask open-ended questions to jump start their own questions.
• Accel Math has assisted my math classrooms with tremendous gains. My test scores have gone up significantly. My students have a greater sense of accomplishment since they have been given the "driver's seat" for their own learning. This makes my heart smile! ;)

• I'd like to see more variety in the types of interactions available. The ones that exist now (hot spot, drag n' drop, flip cards, etc.) are useful, but it would be nice to have more options without having to build something custom in Storyline to pull over. For example, I'd like a more elaborate sorting activity, customizable drag and drop activity, game options such as crosswords, options that allow user response, and more variety in the quizzing and assessment.
• The built-in branching scenario feature requires a bit of trial and error. I'd like to see a snapshot, at-a-glance view of the scenario so it easier to see where the branching is, or where its missing.
• The built-in assessment features are pretty limited - the Knowledge Check block has only multiple choice, multiple response, fill in the blank and basic matching. There is the option to pull in a test bank which is great, but it would be great to have more options built-in without having to develop something more elaborate in Storyline.

Incentivized

• I would like to see the standards were set up in order
• I am never sure of what standards I want to include in set up
• iReady is taking over assessment, but I think we will always include AM STAR progress monitoring

Incentivized

Articulate 360 is an essential tool in our organisation's workflow. The money that we make through its use, far outweighs the cost of renewing our licenses. Articulate 360 has exposed us to new clients that we may not have otherwise encountered if we did not subscribe to the Articulate services.

I rate the overall usability of Articulate 360 ​​with an 8, because of the many possibilities the software offers me. The software ensures that almost anyone without knowledge of coding can develop an interactive online course in a fairly simple and pleasant way.

As a tech savvy person, I found Accelerated Math to be easy to learn. There are a ton of options to display your data and integrate your students learning abilities into the program. It can, however, be a little overwhelming for a tech beginner and if they don't have someone to walk them through the initial steps and get them started, I can imagine it might be difficult for them to get going.

It is consistently available with outages planned and communicated well in advance. The outages also seem to be planned to provide the least disruption to teachers.

Incentivized

It is easy to use and understand. Students have no difficulty finding their way around, and teachers easily understand the reports and data.

Incentivized

It took forever to get someone to respond--either by email or by phone--directly to a pricing and licensing question. It is unfortunate that a company that has such potential as a streamlined course building/authoring tool not only missed the boat with service but also proves itself to be all fluff and no substance.

Incentivized

Renaissance has great videos and articles in their help section. They also have an online user community that has great discussions about using their products, access to free webinars, and great tips. They have the honor roll program/challenge to help users track their progress and talk to other users for ideas and tips. Most one-on-one help comes from our instructional facilitators in our county.

Incentivized

It is pretty straight forward and easy to implement is you are already creating eLearning. If you have old courses created in other versions of Articulate I recommend you update them to the new version even though it is not necessary (especially From Storyline3 to 360) but if you don't you may find difficulty opening and keeping things straight

Incentivized

Adobe Captivate has a ton of incredible functionality. You're able to fully customize user experiences through interactive elements, buttons, transitions, hiding and activating various elements, and so on. But overall Captivate is insanely difficult for someone new to the tool to learn. Most of what I learned about Captivate, I had to do by trial and error or by watching Paul Wilson's YouTube videos. I find Articulate 360 to be far more intuitive

Incentivized

Accelerated Reading and STAR Assessments. We use all three to help prepare students for state assessments. They are all targeting a different area so one is not better than the other. We use the reading portion to help with growth in reading and the STAR Assessments to pinpoint those who struggle with reading to prepare interventions.

Incentivized

If there is going to be an outage for service, Renaissance does a great job of communicating that well in advance to allow the faculty to plan accordingly.

Incentivized

• I am an independent user so far so no ROI; however it has clearly made a positive impact on my course as my students love the clear navigation interface and know exactly where to find content.
• On point to consider is that it has no forum option on its lesson option so this hinders some asynchronous users from interacting with others on the course.
• Users have expressed many positive feedback from using Articulate 360 which increases productivity and engagement.

Incentivized

• Thanks to the practices, exercises, and tests, by end of year 85% of my students will be on grade level or above and those who struggle will make significant growth.
• I like that I can quickly assess and fix misconceptions with a quick print out of a couple of problems.