Yesterday, I was reminded of how successful things happen. Mr. Anderson attended a PLC day at Adlai Stevenson High School and noticed that the presenter engaged the audience with PearDeck. Unfortunately, PearDeck comes with a price we are unable to pay.
When Mr. Anderson approached me about the concept, I initially thought that the presentation tool of questions in Google Slides would be an adequate solution. We found this could be a tool, but being a single teacher in a classroom proved a little challenging to monitor those questions. A teacher needs to toggle back and forth between the presentation and the question/answer window.
As we were talking, Nearpod came to my mind. It quickly became clear that this was the perfect tool that would serve his Anatomy students in their learning experience.
- Upload a presentation from Powerpoint or Google Slides
- Upload images or PDFs
- Once a presentation is uploaded, add "activity cards", "polls", or "questions"
- No sign up required by the students. Simply display the code that they enter into the Nearpod app. Quick, Simple!
- Teacher begins to present. Immediately the presentation shows up on a student's device.
- When it's time for an activity or question, students interact on their iPad by writing, drawing, typing, highlighting
- Students share their creation back to the teacher
- Teacher discusses some responses by the students
Lectures are not always necessary, however when they are the correct delivery for the content, Nearpod became a great tool for our this teacher.
In a 30 minute discussion, Mr. Anderson and I did exactly what the right arrow above states. We went around in circles, backwards at times, but eventually found the tool that serves him best for his content area at this time.
After his experience during the day, Mr. Anderson introduced the tool to his Biology team. Teachers learning and then teaching teachers! It was a great learning experience.
