Technology Spotlight: Nearpod

While preparing for distance learning, I searched through the many types of educational technology out there to try and find something that would fit my needs. I have used Nearpod in the past, but decided to give it another try during the 8 weeks that we did online learning.

So what is Nearpod? It is a website that allows you to create interactive lessons. It can be used as an add-on in Google Slides, or you can go directly to their website and create lessons. Their website also has a ton of lessons that have already been created that you are able to use. You can search by grade, subject, etc.

There are 2 ways to use Nearpod once you have your lesson created. You can enter Teacher-Paced mode or Student-Paced mode. Teacher-paced means that the teacher controls the slides and when to advance to the next one. This is great for in the classroom or during a Zoom/Google Meet teaching session. During distance learning, I always chose the student-paced mode and allowed the students to enter the code to access the lesson on their own time.

Here are a few ways that we used Nearpod during distance learning:

• matched fractions with models
• matched vocabulary with definitions/images
• drew representations of fractions
• highlighted a section of text to find the main idea
• created a Flipgrid video to explain their thinking when solving a problem

I put together a presentation for the teachers at my school so that they could learn more about Nearpod. You can check it out by clicking on the image below:

Nearpod has resources available on their website. There are webinars that you can sign up for on a variety of topics. They have self-guided instructional lessons to help you get started. They also have many how-to videos available on their YouTube page, which you can access from the resource page as well.

https://nearpod.com/resources

If you would like to see a sample lesson, go to https://nearpod.com/student/ and enter the code below:

DPFBU (active through August 31)