Blog 6 Nearpod Integration in Classrooms
Nearpods
When looking over all of the technology tools available this week I found Nearpods to be a new technology tool that I wanted to learn more about. I have heard of Nearpods before from a teacher and students that mentioned it to me last school year so I thought I would learn more about it. Now I see why one of my teachers was using it during her Financial Literacy unit. Nearpods is a free app that teachers can use to create engaging lessons using multimedia presentations. Nearpods has an interactive feature that allows for quizzes and polls throughout their video presentations. I appreciate this feature because it not only just gives the students multiple-choice questions but it also gives open-ended and discussion questions throughout the video. This helps the teacher and student check to make sure they are understanding the information. By using the Nearpod presentation, students that need to go back and rewatch the lesson can do so since it is online and digitized for the students. As high school teachers, we are competing with videos and graphics that hold our student's attention. Nearpods help make learning more interesting and less boring by using integrated virtual reality type tools. I played around with trying some of these lessons out using the integrated tools and I ended up watching a lot more of the lesson than I planned on. The videos were short but interesting and I learned a lot from them. They defiantly held my attention so I am sure students would enjoy them.
Lady presenting a Nearpods logo with verbage of everything you need to know
Nearpods has around 22,000 pre-made lessons available. All of these lessons can be tailored to the needs of the students. They also make it easy for teachers to use. Nearpod lessons can be intergrated into Google Slides and Google Drive. While looking through all of the premade lessons I was amazed at all of the different categories they had available. There seems to be a video on everything. All subjects could use this technology tool with their classes. A quick glance shows you that the lessons are listed by grade levels and it shows how long the video is. Teachers can also get post-session reports to see how well students did with the presentation by the student engagement and quizzes. These reports are good for up to eighteen months so teachers can use that in planning for the next year. There are also shared libraries stored in Nearpods from others in your school or district. I just registered and I have a folder that another librarian in the district started that has a presentation on Genres. I click on the link that allows to share my library with others in the district. This is great since we teach mostly the same type curriculum.
Nearpod. (2021, October 20). What is Nearpod? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anTtMRaQLsM
Spada, Dan. (2021, January 26). How to use Nearpod tutorial 2021-Teacher guide for beginners. {Video}. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVmkS4nGq5E
TeacherFYI. (2021, December 15). Nearpod for teachers: Everything you need to know in 20 minutes. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIgSFEb4H9Q
Thank you for sharing the information on Nearpods this week! This sounds like a wonderful, free and interactive tool that can be used in classrooms and libraries. How cool that you can do so many different things with it. I like the idea of polling the class, or even using it as a means of assessment. The informational video on Nearpods really helped me to understand how the app works and what all it can be used for. Thank you for sharing that there are around 22,000 lessons created- it sounds like a lesson for just about anything! The shared library store in the app sounds like a great feature to help new users. I can't wait to check this free app out. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteTheresa,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing Nearpods. I have not heard of this tool/site before, so I really appreciate the information. Its great that Nearpods is correlated to the standards. I teach kindergarten and use Seesaw which has interactive lessons, digital portfolios, lessons and resource with my littles and it seems a bit similar. Like Nearpods, Seesaw has a library of lessons that teachers can use. I look forward to checking it out.
I appreciate your post about Nearpod as I'd heard of it but was not familiar with what it actually is or does. It sounds like it brings interaction to presentations instead of lectures being just that - lectures. In consideration of flipped classrooms and with students now having their own devices (1:1), I can see a tool like this as being helpful in students accessing information from home or as you stated, being able to rewatch a lesson they didn't understand. I also see this tool as being useful to teachers when planning for e-learning. There are several applications I can think of based on your blog. Thanks for sharing this info!
ReplyDeleteHi Theresa,
ReplyDeleteI've used Nearpod before to make some interactive presentations for my students and they love it. Our school is mostly focused on using PearDeck now, which is a little more compatible with the Google Suite and we have a pro subscription. PearDeck and Nearpod both have similar features that really engage my students during a lesson. I loved using the Nearpod polls and quiz questions (which Pear Deck also has if anyone is interested in exploring this, too). These interactive engagement tools allowed me to informally assess students throughout the lesson and spark a discussion about a particular topic. Nearpod seems to have an extensive pre-made collection now, which it didn't before. I will definitely have to revisit this tool to use for the upcoming school year. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Theresa! This is great information on Nearpod! I loved how the lessons can be curated by grade level, state standards and subject. This would be a terrific warm up activity for students as we begin a new concept, as well as a way to measure understanding as we approach assessment. I also liked your point of being able to use Nearpod to keep students engaged and allow them to rewatch when needed. This makes for a learning and studying tool. Thanks for sharing!
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