Be the Master of Presentations With Pear Deck!

by | Mar 1, 2018 | Teacher Blog

Be the Master of Presentations With Pear Deck!

What is Pear Deck?

Pear Deck is an extension/add-on to Google Slides. This extension helps to make presentations more interactive for students and gives teachers the tools necessary to make learning more interesting.

How to Download Pear Deck

To download Pear Deck you must first go to Google Slides. On the toolbar on the top left, there is a tab titled “Add-ons”. Clicking on the tab will bring up a menu where you can select “Get Add-ons”. This will bring up a window where you can see the add-ons that are available. Pear deck should be one of the first to pop up but if not you can search for it in the toolbar at the top right of the screen.

How Does Pear Deck Work?

Once Pear Deck is open a window will appear on the right-hand side. This window will have many features that can expand a teacher’s ability to make slides more appealing. The features included are:

Beginning of Lesson Activities

Pear deck can help by providing four different beginning of lesson activities. All have to do with how students feel or how much they know about the topic of discussion that day. There are also slides that ask students if they are ready to move on or not. The extension also offers a slide that asks students to reflect on homework.

During Lesson Activities

There are tons of during lesson activities that Pear Deck provides. They all are put in place to help check students understanding throughout the lesson. The activities give insight to teachers on how their students are feeling and how comfortable they are with the subject.

End of Lesson Activities

The end of lesson activities Pear deck offers are useful to teachers who want to make sure their students absorbed all the information they needed before class is over. Pear Deck also makes it easy for teachers to give exit tickets.

How to Present With Pear Deck

Once you finish a presentation and would like to present it click the green button “Present With Pear Deck”. The next step is to make sure that you can see the browser on your projector screen. Click the blue button “Ok, I see it on the projector” A website link and code will appear on the screen. For students to join they must go to joinpd.com and type in the code displayed on the screen. After all, students are in you can start your interactive presentation with PearDeck. When you are done click “End this Session” where you can save the responses to questions and activities used during the presentation.

The Beauty of Pear Deck

PearDeck is an amazing add-on to Google Slides. It allows you to have interactive presentations with features such as the ability to ask questions and give exit tickets. Pear Deck gives teachers the tools needed to effectively teach a subject. This extension/add-on helps to spice up a student’s learning environment and helps to further education.

Check out Maggie’s blog “Nearpod” here for even more presentation ideas!

Nearpod

by | Mar 1, 2018 | Teacher Blog

Nearpod

Why Should I Use Nearpod?

Nearpod is a more interactive version of PowerPoint and Google Slides. It’s perfect for classroom use because there are reports available that show student activity for a particular lesson. Nearpod maybe modified to fit all teaching needs, and it is a great tool for increasing classroom engagement. All teachers should use Nearpod since it is easy to use, engages students in lessons, and can be used for any subject.

What can I do with Nearpod?

When you create your own Nearpod or use a prebuilt Nearpod, there are many features that you can add to a presentation. Polls may be inserted to test student’s comprehension. Likewise, singular questions or quizzes may also be added to assess knowledge retention. There are also less traditional was of testing if the students were paying attention such as memory tests or sharing boards. Sharing boards may also be used as a collaborative space as well as think-pair-shares.

How to Use Nearpod

You can create a Nearpod account with your own Google account. From there you can explore lessons or create your own lesson. Students join with a unique code to your presentation. Once they join, you can see a roster of students, so it is great for tracking who is participating in the activity. You can teach at your own pace or at the pace of the students. You pick!

Gold Edition Perks

Upgrade to gold edition for: “Get more storage, bigger lessons, more students and extra features. Teachers especially like adding to their lessons: Web Page, Virtual Field Trips, Video, and Fill in the blanks”

Pear Deck

Check out a blog by Laura about a similar program

How to Make your Own Nearpod

Making your own Nearpod presentation is super easy. You can take one that is already created, and edit it to fit your personal classroom needs or keep it if you like the exact presentation. If you do not find one that fits your objectives, then you can simply start from scratch and make your own. There is also an upgrade, Gold Edition, that allows for more storage, bigger lessons, more students, and extra features such as: adding web pages, virtual field trips, fill in the blanks, and videos.