With technology taking over at a rapid pace, online learning tools are exploding in popularity. This is the case even for niche topics and platforms.
One specific niche that is exciting and progressive is game and web app development. The skills students can gain from these specific subjects can translate into beneficial skills that they can apply to a high-paying job.
Brite is a top competitor in the game and web app development learning resource industry and aims to impress with its multiple courses and extensive analytics. But – is it as good as it sounds, or will you be left wanting more?
Read on to find out the critical features of Brite, their pricing structure, and more – especially when compared to platforms like Zenva Schools.
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What Is Brite?
Brite is a STEM education platform that aims to give students the transferable skills to be successful game or web app developers.
They provide engaging courses, challenges, and tasks to test the students on their knowledge. They also give teachers full access to analytics like class management and student progression tracking – making it quite easy to see how students are doing with the material.
Who Is The Brite Target Audience?
The primary target audience for Brite is teachers – specifically teachers who teach the STEM curriculum. As such, most of the marketed features on the platform are for teachers, such as the many analytics tools, staff directory, and more.
This being said, Brite does target schools as a whole as well, even offering entire schools demo of their services.
This is quite similar to platforms like Zenva Schools, which target the same audiences and include many of the same features, including classroom management and analytics. As such, Brite is fairly featured where this is concerned.
Who Created Brite?
Dmitry L. founded Brite several years ago. He had previous experience in coding and software testing – and even owned a successful coding academy. He wanted to use his expertise to start a learning platform to help young students engage in game and web app development. In this way, he could create the next generation of fantastic coders.
What Are the Main Aims Of Brite?
Brite has several primary goals in their aim to be the best web app and game development teaching platform.
- They want to provide a great range of courses and learning resources. They are attempting to achieve this goal by including over 200 courses on their product (many provided by third parties). In addition, they add variation by including quests and challenges on subjects such as quests and challenges.
- They want to give teachers as much control over the platform. They give teachers control by presenting them with analytics tools, such as student, class, and family management.
- They want to offer teachers a platform to be creative. Brite wants to give teachers creative freedom by allowing them to create their own curriculums.
What Are The Primary Services On Brite?
Now you know the aims of Brite, you need to learn more about how they made these aims into a reality. They offer multiple resources and features on their platform, all of which are in place to help teachers provide a worthwhile STEM learning experience for students.
As you’ll go through, you’ll find many of these offerings similar to other platforms, like Zenva Schools – though this is by no means a bad thing.
Courses
The leading service that Brite provides is the large selection of courses. Some of these courses include popular coding topics like Scratch, Roblox, and Python.
Along with the courses, there are over 500 quests (coding-related tasks to help students put coding into practice) and over 750 challenges to help students test their skills.
This being said, it is worth noting much of the content is aimed more so for kids. Other platforms like Zenva Schools have a much wider range of content for many different age groups (in addition to content on Scratch and Python). Platforms like Zenva Schools offer quizzes, which are a bit lacking on the Brite platform.
Analytics
Brite wants to deliver the best possible service for teachers, so they include various analytics to provide extra value to the service. Here are all the analytics tools on Brite and how teachers can use them.
- Student management and progression tracking: A tab allows a teacher to manage their whole class and monitor all their student’s progress. They can monitor their overall progress and completion percentage of a particular course.
- Family management: Teachers can keep analytics on vital family data, including the authorised pick-up parent or guardian, emergency contact, and more.
- Staff management: If the school purchases Brite, the authorised users can compile and monitor analytics on the staff, including their contact information, course success rate, and more.
In the future, Brite is looking to add in a check-in system and a billing system as well.
Of course, many of these features can be found on Zenva Schools as well, so Brite certainly doesn’t stand alone in having features teachers would want for their classroom.
Curriculum Creation Tool
One of Brite’s most unique features is the curriculum creation tool, which allows teachers to build their curriculum using the courses available on the site. In this way, teachers can tailor the courses specifically to what they want in the classroom.
This being said, it is a bit up to the teachers to know what they want – which may not work for everyone. For example, Zenva Schools allows teachers to pick and choose courses to teach, provides lesson plans (that are tailored to various curriculums), and also offers a course finder tool so teachers can pick the correct courses right off the bat. As such, other platforms can be a bit more beginner-friendly in this regard.
How Do You Use The Interface On Brite?
While Brite is feature-packed, using it can be challenging at first. The menus are clear enough, but some tools are less intuitive, so it will take time to learn certain aspects (the analytics tools, for example). In other words, there is quite a bit of a learning curve for the management part of using the platform.
That being said, finding a course is relatively simple. There are a limited number of categories, so the system rarely looks cluttered. However, one problem with the system is that external developers provide many interactive quests and challenges. While this guarantees a good level of quality, it can also feel inconsistent.
If consistency is important, services like Zenva Schools can be a bit better in this regard – as they construct and review all their content in-house.
The Brite Features That Need Improvement
While Brite does have its high points, there are some notable gaps.
First, the lack of variation in the teaching resources is a little disappointing. There are only three types of resources: courses, quests, and challenges. In comparison, Zenva Schools (and platforms like it) have a wider berth of learning materials, including:
- Complete video courses
- Text summaries
- Interactive activities
- Quizzes
- Lesson Plans
- Certificates of Completion
Additionally, and as mentioned before, Brite doesn’t develop all their resources and relies on external developers in many cases. As such, consistency is an issue here in certain cases.
What Is The Brite Pricing Structure?
There are three main pricing tiers on Brite. Most include one tier to make the pricing structure less redundant, but Brite offers two cheaper subscriptions for specific educators. Here are the three Brite pricing tiers and what they include.
- The tutor tier: A basic tier that includes the curriculum customization tool, the family, student, and staff management tools, and the lesson assignment tool. It also has all the learning resources on the platform. It costs $14.99 per student per month.
- The learning center tier: A tier specifically for STEM learning centers. It includes all the features on the tutor tier and more, including live Classroom Management, student achievement rewards, student progression reports, the priority support system, and an onboarding training package. It costs $19.99 per student per month.
- The school tier: The tier that has the complete Brite package. It includes all the features on the other two levels and some exclusive features, including a customized catalog of resources and a customized set of Brite features. The price of the school tier depends on the school’s size and the number of students.
While this structure is fairly straightforward, it must be acknowledged it’s on the higher end of pricing for similar platforms. To example, Zenva Schools has a single tier that offers all features – including classroom management, analytics, and all courses on the platform. However, while Zenva Schools similar charges per student, it charges on a yearly basis.
Thus, there are more affordable options around for teachers on a budget.
Key Takeaways
Brite has numerous promising features. This includes a variety of game and web development courses, quests & challenges to supplement the material, analytics, and even their customizable curriculum system. While there are a few gaps in both content, age range, expense, and consistency, it is a worthwhile platform.
However, it is not the only platform out there – as others like Zenva Schools can provide comparable features for a fraction of the cost. Thus, while a great platform, it is one of many – so explore what all the platforms have to offer!