SMART Lumio

Lumio is the lesson software SMART Technologies makes for student devices. A teacher builds or imports a lesson, students join it from their own laptops or tablets, and everyone works on the same lesson at once, in class or at home. SMART's home page calls it "Our award-winning digital learning software" that "helps all learners participate and learn with their peers, in class or at home, all from their student devices." The Lumio site describes it as "Powered by SMART Technologies' 35 years of innovation of education," transforming "lessons into engaging learning experiences on any device."

SMART is better known for its SMART Board interactive displays and its SMART Notebook desktop software, and Lumio is its product for the devices in students' hands. The company says that over 35 years its solutions have reached more than 65 million educators and learners worldwide.

How teachers and students use it

The Lumio site has three entry points: teachers sign up (the button reads "Sign up for FREE"), students use "Join a lesson," and administrators have their own sign-in. Under "Light up learning with Lumio," SMART describes it as student software that "gives teachers the tools to engage every single student in hands-on learning from any device," and says it is "Packed with ready-to-use formative assessments, graphic organizers, and more."

A lesson can start from nothing or from material the teacher already has. Lumio takes PDF, PowerPoint and Google Slides files, and the plan comparison spells out that teachers can "Upload, combine, and edit" them, so slides from several sources can be merged into one interactive lesson. SMART Notebook is listed among the lesson planning options too, which matters for schools that build lessons for SMART Boards. A lesson library offers ready-made lessons.

Delivery works two ways: teacher-paced, where the class moves through the lesson together, and student-paced, where each student works at their own speed. Teachers can also produce "Individual Handouts in one click" from a lesson.

Activities and assessment

The tools listed for Lumio's Standard plan show what goes inside a lesson:

• quizzes and a "Wide range of game-based activities";
• PhET simulations;
• the Desmos Graphing Calculator;
• an equation editor that both teachers and students can use;
• collaborative whiteboarding, where students work on a shared space;
• polls and open-ended questions;
• imported multimedia content.

The quizzes, polls and game-based activities are the formative assessment side of the product: quick checks that show the teacher who has understood what. Collaborative whiteboarding and the student equation editor let students show working rather than only pick answers. PhET and the Desmos Graphing Calculator sit inside the same lesson as the questions, so students do not have to switch to other sites to use them.

AI Assist

Lumio's AI feature is called AI Assist and covers "lesson generation and quiz-based activities." Access differs by plan. The Standard plan for individual teachers has "Limited access to AI Assist lesson generation and quiz-based activities," while the Spark plan for schools and districts has "Full access." In practice, a teacher can have Lumio draft a lesson or a quiz-based activity instead of building it from a blank page.

Accessibility

The site has a section on inclusive classrooms, and the plan comparison lists four accessibility features for Lumio:

• Immersive Reader for text;
• recorded instructional audio;
• audio attached to objects, which both teachers and students can add;
• dyslexic friendly fonts.

Attaching audio to a text object means a student can listen to instructions while reading them.

Plans

The sign-up button reads "Sign up for FREE," and the plan page sets out two paid plans.

Standard is the plan for an individual teacher. The plan comparison on the Lumio site gives its price per year as $59 USD. It includes unlimited lesson and library storage and unlimited students, all the tools and activities above, the accessibility features, file upload with combining and editing, SMART Notebook import, teacher- and student-paced delivery, joining shared libraries, one-click handouts, limited AI Assist, and sign-in with Google or Microsoft. Training is on demand, plus "FREE self-paced coursework & certifications" for teachers who want to learn the product properly.

Spark is the plan for schools and districts, with a "Custom" price per year. It includes everything in Standard, also with unlimited storage and unlimited students, and adds full AI Assist access, the ability to create and manage shared libraries and an organization library, co-editing of lessons, and LMS integrations with Canvas, Schoology and D2L Brightspace.

Training and community

Beyond the product itself, the Lumio site runs a training section with "Learn Lumio," "Lumio in 5 simple steps," professional learning, webinars, and coursework and certifications. A community section includes an ambassadors program and events, and the resources section has a blog, success spotlights, news and an integrations and partnerships page. SMART also lists Lumio events among its company events.

One educator testimonial appears on the plan page. Dana Gropper, a technology integration specialist, says: "Lumio is absolutely my favorite tool for getting students excited about and engaged in their learning!"

The company behind it

SMART's home page says its products are delivered "across 175 countries." Support is one of the company's main selling points: the site reports "94% satisfaction and 75% of cases resolved in under 24 hours" and promises "human-powered help, expert training, and ongoing partnership." Its About section has a privacy and security page stating that "SMART solutions provide exceptional privacy and security, without compromising on interactivity and the features you want." For teachers, the Lumio site also runs a monthly newsletter with lesson ideas, event news and learning insights, and SMART offers a research-based self-assessment called "Assess your EdTech" for schools reviewing their digital strategy.

Who it suits

Lumio suits classroom teachers who teach from slides and want to turn those slides into something students do rather than watch, especially math and science teachers who will use the Desmos calculator, the PhET simulations and the student equation editor. Schools that already own SMART Boards and use SMART Notebook get lesson software from the same company for student devices. Districts on Canvas, Schoology or D2L Brightspace get LMS integration with the Spark plan, along with shared organization libraries and co-editing for teams of teachers.

The caveat is that the richer features sit on the school plan. Full access to AI Assist, the LMS integrations and organization-wide libraries are part of Spark, which is priced on request, so a single teacher on Standard gets the classroom tools but only limited AI.