Nearpod App

What is the Nearpod App? 

The Nearpod App serves several purposes. First of all, Nearpod is a collection of online lessons that is accessible to all users. This collection can be searched by topic, subject, or grade level. Teachers who are struggling to create an activity for a particular objective can look for inspiration or rip an entire lesson if the lesson good enough. Second of all, Nearpod can be used to create your own lessons on the app/internet site. You can create slides that have text, images, or upload a website source directly to the slide. Get rid of the wasted time of clicking on a link on your presentation. You can have the website content appear directly on the slide. You can also add questions to check for mastery. You can add a multiple choice question (quiz option), open-ended question, fill in the blank, memory test, 'draw it' feature, and poll. These questions can be added at any point during the presentation for students to complete.Lastly, assign lessons to students and keep track of their progress. You can keep up with the rate at which students answer questions correctly and have a documentation of what their answers were. These lessons have a fantastic formative assessment format so that you can truly engage how effective the lesson was and what objectives (if any) need to be retaught or reviewed. One of the best things about Nearpod is it is usable on multiple devices. It can be accessed via the website, but also accessed by smart phones. 

How would I use the Nearpod App in my classroom?

First of all, the most attractive feature of Nearpod and easiest one to use in the classroom is the assessment portion of the presentations. I would definitely utilize this easy way to compile formative assessment data to determine mastery of an objective. Even if my classroom activities were not completely geared towards the Nearpod presentation, I can still utilize the questions to measure mastery. 

Second of all, Nearpod provides an easy way to send presentations to students' devices. It is a hassle to upload power points or have to trouble shoot how students are going to utilize programs from the computer on their device and vice versa. With Nearpod, I can upload previously created presentations (ppt) into Nearpod's system and it makes the streamline process much easier when it comes to students viewing presentations on devices.