I was doing Econ 203 at the University of Victoria and our instructor asked us to use TopHat so it will be my educational technology tool of choice for this assessment.

  • Who owns the tool? What is the name of the company, the CEO? What are their politics? What does the device say it does? What does it actually do?

For this question, I learned through consulting the information that TopHat belongs to a Canadian company named TopHat Monocle Corp. Mike Silagadze is the founder of the company and the CEO of TopHat is Joe Rohrlich. The software’s policy is to help with the persistently high cost of higher education and help college professors work more efficiently and brilliantly, thereby increasing the return on investment for students. The tool claims to be an interactive teaching platform that helps teachers broadcast learning content to student devices in real-time through activities such as polls, quizzes, discussions, and interactive textbooks. It is designed to promote student engagement, active learning, and real-time feedback. In practice, TopHat provides a platform for professors to create and publish interactive content that allows students to participate more actively in class discussions and assess their level of engagement with the entire course through quizzes and polls. But at the same time, the students also found that there were some hidden problems. For example, when professors share course content, there is a certain delay, and they cannot effectively follow the progress of professors. In the test, many students answer questions through search because the software does not detect whether other websites are open.

  • What data are we required to provide in order to use the tool (login, e-mail, birthdate, etc.)? What flexibility do we have to be anonymous, or to protect our data? Where is data housed; who owns the data? What are the implications for in-class use? Will others be able to use/copy/own our work there?

Before we use TopHat, users need to create an account and associate the course number to use it normally. When creating an account, we need to provide your name, email address, the password for creating the account, and your school. Anonymity for this software is a difficult condition to achieve because our professors will use the software to test our final grades. We have no choice but to provide an accurate name, email address, student ID, and location. TopHat’s Privacy Policy Outlines that the data they collect, such as user activity data and personal information provided during registration, is kept on TopHat’s servers, ownership of the data is vested in the company, but they are not used for any commercial purposes and are strictly confidential. Using TopHat in the classroom allows educators to gather student feedback, track participation, and assess student performance. The platform provides teachers with more detailed student engagement details and creates a lot of activities to interact with students. Other users may not be able to directly use or copy original works created by individuals within TopHat unless shared voluntarily by the original authors.

  • How does this tool act or not act as a mediator for our pedagogies? Does the tool attempt to dictate our pedagogies? How is its design pedagogical? Or exactly not pedagogical? Does the tool offer a way that “learning can most deeply and intimately begin”?

TopHat acts as an intermediary for teaching by providing interactive questions and real-time voting in the classroom. It builds a more effective communication bridge between professors and students. It does not attempt to dictate teaching methods, but to provide a platform for educators. It enhances students’ learning experience with a variety of interactive content and tests. In a sense, TopHat’s design is pedagogical because it provides a teaching platform that effectively promotes students’ active learning and active participation. Obviously, TopHat does not directly provide a way to “get the deepest, most intimate start,” but it does provide opportunities for engagement and active learning and enhances understanding and memory of the course material.

I choose this activity because I am curious about the teaching tools I have used in my learning process and want to learn more about the software through this topic. This is consistent with my learning goal of critically examining the use of technology in education. By understanding the role TopHat plays in learning, I have gained a deeper understanding of data ownership, the role of interactive platforms in student engagement, and instructional design considerations for educational technology tools. In order to create meaningful and effective learning experiences for students, this activity provides educators with criteria for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of software. It is hoped that it can be widely used in the whole education field.

Reference

Dhami, H. (2022, February 28). 5 apps to strengthen peer community in Higher ed [updated 2022]. Top Hat. https://tophat.com/blog/community-apps-for-college-students/

Meet the team. Top Hat. (2023, June 7). https://tophat.com/company/meet-the-team/

Privacy policy. Top Hat. (2023b, May 10). https://tophat.com/company/legal/privacy-policy/