Box is an online Intelligent Content Management solution that caters to individual users as well as businesses.
$21
per month 3 users (minimum)
Read&Write
Score 8.8 out of 10
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Read&Write is a literacy support tool that helps individuals of all abilities read, write, and express themselves with confidence. For education and the workplace, its assistive features include text-to-speech, word prediction, and research tools for users with diverse learning needs.
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OrbitNote
Score 7.6 out of 10
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OrbitNote is a dynamic PDF editor for working with documents. Users can modify, annotate, and convert files while creating an accessible and collaborative workspace for all.
Read&Write has the benefit of better word prediction than Helperbird. The word prediction is not as good as Co:Writer (due to volume of topics and web-scraped topics, and iPad app), but Read&Write killed Co:Writer so it is not a competitor anymore, unfortunately. I would choose …
Special Education Coordinator/Resource Room teacher
Chose Read&Write
Read&Write has many more features, such as highlighting, speech to text, picture dictionary, screen contrast, and masking. Read&Write is much more accessible for all students and staff as well, since it is attached to their individual accounts.
I also use orbit note along with Read&Write with my students. I like both of these as they do different things. Orbit note has a very similar toolbar to Read&Write which I like. This similarity also helps with carryover with students knowing what buttons to push on the tool bars.
I really think that Read&Write outshines the competitors. Its variety of tools offers so many options to so many students/people. Some of the other tools were cumbersome, only worked on installed programs like MS Word or only worked in its own environment. Read&Write works …
I think Box is great for research teams or anyone that has a large number of files that need to be securely stored. Particularly in the case of social science research, where it is important to protect identifying data, Box is a great option. In cases where teams need a more reliable means for real-time collaboration, I would probably consider a different alternative
Read&Write is a solid, long-lasting tool that I have relied on for my students for many years. It is especially strong at supporting students with reading challenges. It is less appropriate for students with more complex needs who have non-standard speech or are using head or eye control. It will continue to be a tool that I encourage many students to use.
The main feature that I like the most in Box is that it makes collaboration seamless, workers can easily check the documents any time and make changes according to the needs.
Box manages and backs up all of your files on its cloud servers, and provides a very nice interface for creating, viewing, editing, and collaborating on the most commonly used file types (PDF, XLS, DOC, etc.).
Over the past few years, Box has built on top of its basic cloud storage management with a host of other tools, such as workflows, AI, monitoring, and analytics.
It is helping us to make good connections with clients and our workers themselves as to its syncing and viewing feature to all is very much helpful and easy to go.
I would like to use the practice reading aloud tool more, but the kids that I work with have a hard time understanding the concept. I think that, while there are a lot of tools available, sometimes they are hard for younger students to understand.
The hover to read function is nice as well, but my students struggle with the fact that if you move the mouse once it starts reading it will start all over in a new area. It's not as smooth as I would like it to be.
I like the security features and I like the website. It's easy to use and create and move things around as needed. The main reason for a lower rating is because the Box Sync app is just not a good program. It's a memory hog, it's slow, transfer speeds are slow, and it's not the most efficient route. If you have a large Box account and you need to get a computer up to speed on a large amount of data within Box, you are in for the long haul. Last time I had to do this, it took 3 days to sync all of the files and we are talking around 100 GB worth of data
I'm just really impressed with the software and the access it gives to learners who are used to coming up against barriers in education. It's a quick-fix for a learner - something they can access usefully and productively with very little training. I also love that learners can access Read&Write on their devices at home - that really is a game changer.
Everything with Box is seamless. It can be integrated into virtually any other software or application. You can even get the app for your phone or tablet to work on the go. File syncing is so quick. The only reason I gave it a 9 is the issue I discussed earlier about the local file application rebooting and not continuing to sync files. Other than that, it's great!
I am giving this an 9. Not a perfect score because working on PDFs is better but not yet as easy as I need for it to be. Working with many students who have executive function challenges, I need a smooth simplistic access method. We are not quite there yet for writing on PDFs. Overall the toolbar on Read&Write is super easy to access and I love that the suite includes several tools on the toolbar providing a solution to many accessibility challenges.
Yeah, it's always worked, I've never had any kind of connection issues, the only issues I've had it I've been on our end when the Internet hasn't worked.
The general operation and management of Box is very efficient, both when accessing the account, and when adding files, downloading or modifying any document directly. The web platform, mobile and desktop versions work really well and quickly, making all the work and process flow smoothly and without setbacks. So far I have not been able to observe any inconvenience
I found their support community lacking in clarity when I experienced a login issue. The error messaging was poor on my Box Sync application. I did not reach out to support staff for help, instead, I reasoned that I should try downloading the Box Sync application again and reinstall it. That fixed my issue, thankfully. I think a less computer-savvy user would've been much more frustrated.
The support team at Texthelp is excellent. They're all super helpful and open to feedback and new ideas. Still, more importantly, they are ultimately fully committed to aligning with us and ensuring they help us provide the best education possible. Furthermore, they're open to new features and always communicate this incredibly well.
The documentation is good. Since Box is a popular service, there were also a number of YouTube videos and other sources that were helpful as we were considering the product and planning for deployment. Also, the ability to try the free version helped to prepare us.
Be careful with settings. It is easy to get overwhelmed with updates. For example, you don’t want to be updated when doing historical data uploads. I recommend taking off notifications initially and then turn on post you have done your historical data upload.
It took a solid 2 weeks for R&W to work on our students chromebooks even after reaching out to tech support. The toolbar was greyed out and not accessible to students. Took a long time before tech support helped us solve this problem.
They are kind of the same. And both of them do their job as promised. But for company and project wise I think that Box slightly wins for some points. Which [makes him] win over Google Drive (don't forget that Google Drive is very easy to use and has a lot [of] nice features too).
We are still learning how to use Equatio. I am not a mathematician and therefore I am finding understanding it a bit more difficult. Once I understand how to use it I will be able to cascade it down. My hope is that it will be as useful as Read & Write
I like how read&write integrates with OrbitNote making it where students do not have to learn multiple tools depending on what they are doing on the computer.
Box has been an only positive experience. It provides a seamless way for me and my team to collaborate on documents in such a way where we're not sending the document back/forth via email. It's a huge timesaver.
Box reduces the risk of sharing a sensitive document to the wrong person via email.
Box has provided a platform where my team can share notes in meetings - this has helped streamline and organize our meetings. Our meetings are more productive and actionable.
