Likelihood to Recommend GoGuardian Teacher is great for a teacher who needs a way to monitor student activities and work time on a laptop. It is easy to set up, simple to use and helps to keep students accountable when online in class. It integrates with
Google Classroom which is a big help. It is more powerful for teachers experienced in using tech in the classroom. The archiving ability is great but the UX needs to improve.
Read full review Many of my students reach the 852 score and are eligible to take the Star Reading test in the Spring. This is due to the reports telling me which skills to work on and being able to group students according to skill needs. When I need teacher assistance, online meetings with Renaissance support personnel has been available. Renaissance always welcomes teacher feedback to improve their products. The company has acquired many classroom tools in the last years and connected them fir ease of teacher use, which saves classroom time.
Read full review Pros Cloud-based. Teachers do not have to monitor from just one device - they can do it from any device. GoGuardian allows teachers to lock a student's screen when he/she needs the students attention. GoGuardian allows the teacher to view all students' devices simultaneously. Read full review Renaissance Star Assessments gives me a look at each student as an overall reader. Renaissance Star Assessments shows me the areas of which my students are struggling. Renaissance Star Assessments is linked with Nearpod, so I can assign lessons based on what each student needs. Star CBM helps me see whether my students' fluency is improving or not. Read full review Cons Scope of device monitoring (laptops, desktop computers and not just Chromebooks) Needs an updated interface to more accurately fit advances in technology Ability to more easily interact and adjust with a student's device Read full review The graphs for each subject are not consistently the same. (ie. some graphs are by 5s and some are by 50s.) It's very confusing to read them. The questions are not rigorous enough for state standards. Different reports will show data that does not align. If 'state' is chosen, then all reports should show the same data. The Parent Report will show the child in 'green', but every sub-skill is in 'red'. That is super confusing for parents and teachers. All reports should be based on the same score, but they are not. It is like comparing apples to oranges on the same child. Read full review Likelihood to Renew For a technology-heavy school, it is a necessary and good tool for managing classroom use of laptops. It is easy to set up and use. Helps track time on task and internet usage. Another source of data when speaking to parents about student work and activity. Can help plan and manage work time when you have limited devices.
Read full review I give it this rating because it is an essential program in our school. We set up reading groups throug( the Star assessment. We set goals based on the assessment. Students comfort zones are based on the zpd data in Star. We track students progress through the data found in Star.
Read full review Usability I love the idea that it takes only a short period of time for the students to be able to take the quizzes and obtain results. I appreciative how quickly the teacher has plans on implementation in her/his hands as soon as the class has completed the quiz.
Read full review Reliability and Availability It’s wonderful
Read full review Performance I absolutely love this program
Read full review Support Rating The support is great. On the rare occasion that I've had to reach out to support they have been very quick to respond and extremely helpful. I've also had teachers reach out directly to support themselves. Most of the time I don't even know that a teacher has reached out to support until after the fact. They always seem satisfied.
Read full review After using the product for multiple years, I am very pleased with the assessment administration and report options. I use STAR Assessment data regularly and review the different reports to guide instruction. There are many different report options to help meet the needs of the teacher and student. STAR Assessments are a valuable assessment tool for the classroom
Read full review Online Training I just feel this way.
Read full review Implementation Rating When presenters show us how to use the program they need to have a full class size of data. During training, there were only 5 or 6 sample students. Classes are more like 25 and that makes the training more realistic to have similar data to what we will use.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I have used Hapara in a previous school district. GoGuardian is more user-friendly and easier to setup. I do think GoGuardian has some room on improving the ease of finding some areas of the program, but once you know the path to get there it is quick.
Read full review Renaissance Star Math Assessment provided a proven data collection tool. This was also being used at the lower grades in our district, so it made sense to continue with its use to provide a more reliable and accurate picture of our students entering the middle school. The continuation of the data trail should continue to help their overall growth.
Read full review Scalability Great overall program with lots of advice in implementation
Read full review Return on Investment We have been able to identify inappropriate websites that students have discovered. For example anonymous proxies, movie streaming, etc. Through this software, we have been able to identify the students and in turn block the websites. We have been able to identify which students have been using other user's accounts. This was an unintended side effect of the software. If a teacher knows that a student is using a Chromebook but the student is not showing up in the software, we are easily able to deduce that the user must be using another student's account. Read full review It has positively impacted student time to learn by reducing testing times and allowing more time for instruction The reduced testing time also positively impacted our schools by freeing the computer labs and making the planning and creation of testing schedules easier. This has allowed more computer lab use for education and learning. It has negatively impacted the time and effort required by support staff, administrators, and some teachers by requiring more time spent on looking up results or going to multiple spots and manually combining results because a larger group couldn't easily be made. Another negative impact on our district is that it has also taxed those few educators with more technical ability and data knowledge moreso than other programs. The need to create/summarize/write programs to deal with full, raw data export files since the smaller, more specific reports and summaries are not downloadable into a format that can be manipulated easily (pdf only, not csv exports), and to constantly back up data exports and to have to search through them when the State wants results on past students etc. Read full review ScreenShots