MindTap is an eLearning course management solution from Cengage, a digital learning content and technology provider. For educators, it includes pre-made interactive course materials (such as homework assignments, assessments, etc.), analytics around student engagement and performance, and the ability to customize courses. For students, MindTap offers a mobile app to access eBooks, flashcards, quizzes, grades, and due date reminders.
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ITProTV
Score 6.3 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
ITProTV is an elearning platform that aims to allow you to ditch the boring slide shows and start really learning IT. The training is more like a talk show -- you’ll watch your ‘edutainer’ engage with a host and an online audience to create a better-than-classroom experience that you and your team will look forward to watching. The vendor says new content is added every day and the course library has more than 3,300 hours covering all of the major certification courses (e.g. CompTIA,…
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Pricing
Cengage MindTap
ITProTV
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MindTap
ITProTV
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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Corporate memberships are available. Individual memberships are monthly or annual.
We started using the application optimally at the beginning as a digital learning and consultation platform. In it we imported all kinds of bibliographic material so that students could access them with the ease of a tap. The application is perfect for those instructors who are not beginners in HTML. In that case, the application very practically allows them to create a complete course in the shortest possible time because it has a state-of-the-art instructional design. It was excellent for unifying all the basic course plans between teachers teaching the same subject, giving the advantage that all courses at the same level would have exactly the same information and nothing would be overlooked
I've encouraged co-workers and non-coworkers to watch the live streams of ITProTV. Unfortunately, my company currently uses CBT Nuggets (none of the people I've asked like it/utilize it), but those who do take the suggestion often ask the same question: Why do we not use ITProTV instead of CBT? I met a young man who was in his final year of college pursuing an accounting degree. He asked me about the IT industry. I suggested he look at ITProTV in order to see if there is a subject he's interested in. He immediately signed up, and while working two jobs and going to school, he managed to get his CCNA and pass the Microsoft 70-410 within 6 months. We hired him. If you just want to hone your skills, ITProTV delivers. If you are seeking certifications, ITProTV delivers. The only demographic that I can imagine where it would be unsuited, is simply for those who are ignorant that nearly every industry involves some form of technological understanding. ITProTV is good for end users "non-IT personnel", as well as those supporting end users.
The biggest issue our first-time users have with Mindtap is that ad/pop-up blockers often stop the tool from opening. (Mindtap typically opens in a new window vs inside the LMS) This leads to a lot of initial frustration amongst the students early in the course.
MindTap lacks a really strong set of roles outside of Instructor and Student. There is no Teaching Assistant role or and IT/Course Builder role. Additionally setting up students workers as TAs in one course while they may be a student in another concurrently has been more than a little cumbersome.
The UI is a bit dated and it doesn't implement many responsive web design features, though this can typically be worked around by downloading the free app.
The mobile app experience is not as strong for Instructors as it is for students.
The episode download feature could use a little work (speaking about the Android experience). When you download the episode, you need to go to downloaded in ITProTV instead of just playing on the normal episode content screen. It works well for what it is, but it would be nice to have the downloaded content play straight from the episode screen.
I've had a few little issues with the Roku. It works great, but there have been a couple times when I needed to contact support because the Roku kept saying I wasn't a subscriber. The problem mostly resolved itself, but I still occasionally get the message. It isn't a huge deal since I can still access the content on Android or through a web browser.
I would like to see an al la carte for school education. Currently, we must contact a sales rep for one-off trainings, like A+, Network+, etc. (the sales reps are phenomenal... so that isn't much of an issue!)
It's hard to imagine not renewing it as the professors would not want to go back to the way their courses were previously populated. The only thing that would cause us to change would be in the textbook changed and the new company offered a better tool
Using ITProTV has been a cakewalk. Not once have I wished that we went with a different vendor. The content stays updated. My technicians are improving their skills. We can train when we need it and access the content required. We are improving all the way around.... why wouldn't I want to renew?
Let me start with... their chat really works. You aren't chatting with a bot. When we first looked into purchasing ITProTV, I opened a chat on their site. One of their sales people, Brandon, contacted me quickly and by phone. I totally thought I was chatting with a computer, then the phone rang and Brandon introduced himself. I was blown away. Then, on the two occasions when I contact support, I did it through the chat. Not only did my problem get resolved quickly, a tech named Jessica followed up via email a couple days later to make sure the issues hadn't continued. Fantastic!
MindTap is the only learning software I currently use, but in the past I have used Pearson and McGraw Hill learning content. All of these companies are progresses at a similar rate and making great improvements to their educational materials. MindTap, in my opinion has the best customer service support and representatives in the business. Our rep. has been very responsive.
Previously my team used the Microsoft on demand training which has everything you could ever dream of from Microsoft in the same format as ITProTV. It did have the latest and greatest Microsoft training because it is Microsoft, but it only had Microsoft and nothing more. The cost was the other issue. The On demand workshops subscription cost a lot more than my budget would allow. I would have been forced to pick who was getting training and who was not which would most likely cause some friction between the team members.
The positive impact is to help students practice statistics to solve business problems.
The negative side is that the pricing might be too high compared to other free options available, even though the free options might not have the same features MindTap has.
