Nearpod

A presentation app (like PowerPoint) but interactive and fun for the students! Nearpod has redesigned presentations for students. You are able to take your typical PowerPoint presentations or Google Slide presentations and make them interactive by adding multiple choice, written response, drawing response questions, and so much more! Nearpod has taken a lecture style presentation and allowed for formative assessments to be built into your lesson through one program. Nearpod can be used through devices, tablets, and computers for FREE (except for a few features that can only be used through the Gold Edition)!

Negatives: The only negative that I find with this program is that sometimes it takes a while to load the presentations. This could be because of all the content that it has to pull from. However, if your internet signal is not strong enough at your school, it could pose problems because waiting students could lead to behavior problems.

Lesson Ideas: Nearpod is a very versatile program which allows you to use it for a number of reasons. I would simply start using this program by adding presentations to your library from the Nearpod store. Make sure you preview the lesson first to ensure that it hits the standard that you are teaching. Use that lesson to get your students used to the style of the presentation. Another way to use this is to have the students work on the lesson at their own pace. When you schedule a student-paced lesson, they can sort through any problems that they come across before moving onto the next slide. With the live lesson, you control the movement of slides so the students who take longer to complete activities may be left behind. When your students have worked with the program some, start creating your own lessons. For older students, they can create their own presentations using this program.

Below, I have included many screenshots on both the computer program and the free app for devices.

This is the screen that will come up after you sign up for an account. This is the main home page where all of your presentations will go.

At the top left of the home page is your navigation bar. This is where you can switch between your library of presentations, the Nearpod store, and creating a new presentation.

In your library, there will already be pre-loaded presentations that come when you first sign up for your account. The Getting Started lesson is great if you come across something that you need more information about. In the red square, the lessons give you the grade range that the specific lesson is geared towards. When you hover over a lesson with your mouse, the next options come up. In the orange square, you are able to launch the lesson live to students. This option will give you and your students a code to type in to their device. You will have control of the pace of the lesson through your teacher computer. In the yellow square, a student-paced lesson will be launched. It will give you another code for the students to use, but this time, they will have control of the pace of the lesson. In the green square, you can edit the presentation. If you bought or downloaded the lesson from the store, you are able to edit the content that you do not want in there or add specific things to that lesson to better fit your standards. In the blue square, you are able to preview the lesson without launching it live or as a student paced lesson. Finally, in the purple square, these are more options that you have with that lesson like, delete, duplicate, rename, export, and more.

If you come across something that you need more information about, you can click the text button on the bottom right hand of the screen in the blue dot. This will pull up a screen where you can start a conversation with Nearpod.

At the top right hand corner, there is a person icon where you have your account settings. This is where you can edit you account and log out.

Below, I have added a gallery of step-by-step instructions on how to create a new presentation.

The next part of this program that you MUST know about is the Nearpod Store. Click on Explore on the Navigation Bar at the top of the screen and you will be redirected here (see below).

FINALLY, here are a few screenshots that I took as I launched a live lesson. This is what the students would see during a live lesson with all of the features that I added.