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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Google Classroom
Score 8.2 out of 10
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N/A
$0
per month
Pricing
Read&Write
Google Classroom
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Education Fundamentals
$0
per license/per month
Google Workspace for Education Standard
$3
per student/per year
Teaching and Learning Upgrade
$4
per license/per month
Google Workspace for Education Plus
$5
per student/per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Read&Write
Google Classroom
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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Education Fundamentals Version - 30-day free trial for qualifying institutions.
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.
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.
Google Classroom allows teachers to post for daily lessons and assignments. It also allows teachers to be able to communicate with students easily outside of class. Students are able to stay connected and know where to find all information and resources easily in a streamlined manner for all of their classes.
Student-teacher communication - I love using Classroom for this because my students can always go back and check what was on Classroom by looking through the stream. This way they don't have to go dig through emails to find what they're looking for.
Posting to multiple classes - I can post the same announcement or assignment to multiple classes at once without having to repeat the process or send separate emails.
Streamlining grading - when students turn work in on Classroom, it all goes to one place and then when I'm grading I can open their documents directly from Classroom or my Drive folder. This way, I'm not looking through emails and Google Doc shared files for their assignment.
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'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.
Testing is particularly important in online learning, and Google Classroom falls far short of other learning management systems in this regard. Security is also a concern: while account control is reasonable for the account used with Google Classroom, the person controlling a particular account is often able to, for example, forward or download proprietary materials.
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.
Simple design and seamless integration with Google tools and drive, but missing some key features. However, since it is limited in overall functions and ability to truly personalize / customize, it is quite user friendly and easy to set up and get going, other than sending out the code to your course or dropping students in via their gmail account. Users of Google Forms and sites will find the layout similar in design.
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.
Since this platform is provided by Google, the technical support is better than any others, and we are not required to bother about the space constraints for adding the contents. If we have a good uninterrupted internet facility we can access Google Classroom without any delay or lag. They have app support in both Android and iPhone.
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.
It was relatively easy to implement due to the simplicity of the platform. Even our more technology challenged teachers found it easy to get started with Google Classroom.
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 haven't tested or evaluated another digital classroom website or application. I feel like Google Classroom is convenient for many reasons such as compatibility to Google docs, slides, etc. I also love the ability to link to YouTube and other sites. I don't know if there would be a site that is easier to maneuver.
