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Duolingo Vs Garbanzo
Spanish or vanish? Which path will Garbanzo have to walk?
By Hudson Howey
In every Spanish class at our school, a website called Garbanzo is used to do Spanish lessons and a Core Pathway. It is my belief that this website isn’t as functional as Duolingo could be. Starting simply with the design, Garbanzo is less visually pleasing and might begin to be associated with boredom. This doesn’t just make students dislike the website, but maybe even the language itself.
In contrast, Duolingo is very colorful and vibrant with a smoother, more appealing user interface which can have students enjoy the program more. Duolingo is also set up to have repeating characters in stories and lessons. Speaking of lessons, Duolingo allows you to scroll upwards through the story, while Garbanzo requires you to choose a slide to return to. And Duolingo lessons don't require as much context, just the vocabulary, meaning they can be completed faster and better retained.
But this change isn’t only beneficial to students, it is also a help to our school district. According to the official website for Garbanzo “A Standard Subscription is $149. This subscription level allows all of your students to create accounts in all of your classes– there is no cap! You have full access to all lessons on Garbanzo, and limited access to Learning Paths and Biblioteca features. A Premium Subscription is $299.”
And yet for Duolingo, also from their respective official website under frequently asked questions: “No! Duolingo for Schools is 100% free.” Thus making it a more cost effective option as well. Even though in the grand scheme of things a $299 difference means little to the school overall this is still something that can be put towards other projects.
To any avid users of Duolingo, you might know there is a limited amount of hearts daily. However this limit is completely ignored by Duolingo for schools, giving you infinite hearts. This should allow students to not be afraid to try, making mistakes or not. In addition, millions of people have already been using Duolingo, and it has been proven to be effective as well as done outside of school willingly, a trait that Garbanzo does not possess.
Even beyond these differences, Duolingo has another feature that would be beneficial… personalized learning. Thus making advanced students able to progress at a further pace then could be achieved with standardized lessons for all students.
Thank you for reading!
If you want to know more about Duolingo for Schools visit here:
Welcome to Duolingo for Schools!
http://www.duolingo.com/classroom/yswume