Logo of Lumio by SMART with a graphic of a stylized, abstract firefly above the brand name, symbolizing interactive and dynamic learning.

Lumio comparisons vs Nearpod

Get more from your lessons and give students more ways to learn with Lumio

Lumio gives students a variety of ways to learn, while providing flexibility in content creation and lesson delivery. All at a low price.

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Give students more ways to learn,
especially with and from each other

1. Free-form group workspaces 

Lumio

Lumio lets students connect with one another digitally, just like they do face-to-face. 

Any lesson page can become a workspace where students contribute in pairs, small groups or with the whole class. You can even turn a page into a shared workspace on the fly during lesson delivery. 

Student ideation

Put students into small, adjustable groups and give them a free-form workspace for student-led work and ideation. Students add ink, text, web and video links, and safe-searched online images, so each group takes the learning in their own direction.

Keep track of contributions

Students can manipulate and move objects around, or write and draw with ink, all in a shared Lumio workspace. The attribution feature means everyone’s contributions are tagged with their name.  
VS

 Nearpod

Compare Nearpod, which does not offer shared workspaces for free form group collaboration.

Limited whole-class interaction

Nearpod is mostly focused on students’ individual contributions, with limited whole-class interaction in their Collaborate Board feature.

2. Free-form individual contribution in digital student handouts

Lumio

Give every student an individual copy of a lesson page, and empower them to respond in their own way. 

Student learning ownership

Lumio’s student creation tools let them choose how they share their knowledge, so they take greater ownership of their learning. Students interact with digital manipulatives, adding ink, text, web and video links, and safe-searched online images.

Enable students to create digital artifacts, while you monitor their progress and provide feedback in real time.

VS

Nearpod

Nearpod offers limited ways for students to contribute. For example, Nearpod’s open-ended question tool allows students to respond with text only.

3. Whole-class brainstorming and discussion with Shout It Out

Lumio

Get the whole class thinking together and capture every student's ideas, questions, and connections in one space.

Run a class discussion, brainstorming activity or take a quick poll where every student can share text or images into a shared workspace. Organize student submissions by moving and grouping them.

Equal, active opportunities 

Individual student contributions can be tagged, and students have equal, active opportunities to share and develop their voice and ideas.
VS

Nearpod

Compare Nearpod’s Collaborate Board feature, which restricts the ability for teachers to organize student posts into columns to the paid School / District Premium Plus license only.

SMART Ambassadors

SMART is our go-to method to get the job done in a much more efficient way for us. We can give kids what they need at the touch of a finger.

Carmon Arquette

Principal

4. More flexibility in content creation and lesson delivery

  • Customizable
  • Game-based
  • Adapt on the fly

Edit the content of any of the thousands of ready-made resources available in the Lumio library

Compare Nearpod, which offers pre-created lessons, but limits your ability to edit pre-existing lesson pages. To adapt pre-created lesson content in Nearpod to the requirements of your curriculum, you would need to add separate slides or activities.

Access many types of individual, team-based, collaborative, and competitive games, all customizable for the material you want to teach. These include multiple drag and drop activities like matching, sorting and fill in the blanks. Create a word search in seconds. Run a quiz where teams compete to answer their questions correctly, with their progress represented by race track, a virtual game show, or hatching monster eggs. Create sorting games that challenge students using a wide variety of fun themes, including braving a dragon, battling pirates, or duelling on an electric guitar.

Compare Nearpod, which offers fewer types of customizable games.

During live instruction, instantly add new pages, turn a new page into a student handout or group workspace, or add a Shout It Out activity – and save all your and your students’ work on these new activities to the lesson.

In Nearpod, activities added during lesson delivery in Live Participation mode, including Whiteboard and Live Annotation, are temporary and are not saved back to the file. Neither your annotations, nor any student work are saved as part of the lesson. Also, Live Annotation is only available with a paid Premium Plus school or district license.

A much lower price

Spend less and get more

Lumio has a free plan, and paid plans start at $59* per teacher, annually.
*Some regions don’t list the price. Please reference our pricing page 

Nearpod increased their prices, now starting at $159 and as high as $397 per teacher per year.

No storage limitation

Lumio subscribers can create lessons, activities, and resources to use in class without the worry of going over a storage limit.

Nearpod’s paid teacher subscription plans limit the amount of storage teachers can use.

Smiling young student using a laptop with Lumio educational software.
Logo of Lumio by SMART with a graphic of a stylized, abstract firefly above the brand name, symbolizing interactive and dynamic learning.

Free software for educators

Make any lesson interactive and access an ever growing resource and content library

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Date of publication: January 12th, 2022

©2022 SMART Technologies. All rights reserved. All third-party product and company names are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Information contained in this document is accurate to the best of SMART Technologies ULC’s (SMART’s) knowledge as of the date of publication (January 12th, 2022). While SMART has made reasonable attempts to verify the accuracy and timeliness of the information herein, it is not responsible for any errors or omissions; all information is provided on an “as is” basis only. Results obtained from the use of this information are without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to, warranties of performance, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event will SMART, its agents or employees be liable to you, or anyone else, for any decision made or action taken in reliance on the information in this comparison or for any consequential, special or similar damages, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.