Nearpod

by Zeynep Gecu-Parmaksiz

Nearpod is a dynamic student engagement platform that makes every lesson interactive. It provides engaging activities with the help of virtual reality, simulations, slideshows, audio and video. As a teacher, you can embed your favourite documents (.ppt, .pdf, Google Slides, media, or videos directly from YouTube) and questions directly into videos. Nearpod also allows teachers to assess their students with polls, open-ended questions, draw-its, and more. To drive student engagement, teachers can benefit from the library of pre-made lessons and videos, using the original version as-is or customizing to meet desired standards.

Nearpod provides several different teaching modes. Live Participation mode gives control of the pace to the teacher, and students are invited to join the class either in-person or remotely. Student-Paced Mode provides the opportunity for students to study asynchronously, at any time from anywhere.

Teachers can use many of Nearpod’s features without upgrading their accounts. Nearpod has several features that can help create an interactive learning environment. After logging in, a Nearpod teacher can find pre-created lessons by filtering based on grade or subject area. After adding a pre-created lesson to your library, you can edit and customize it to meet students’ needs before assigning it to your class.

As a teacher, creating a lesson on Nearpod is quick and easy! This tool supports numerous file formats, enabling you to build an interactive lesson on material you already have. By clicking on Upload Files, almost any content can be added from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, or OneDrive.

There are interactive collaboration boards, simulations, slides, polls, open-ended questions, and quiz options to create dynamic lessons for students. You also have the option to add a timer to various Nearpod activities.

Once the lesson has been created, students can join using a specific code or link. Students do not need to have their own account; they can join the lesson with just their name! Nearpod also allows teachers to share their lessons with students on both Microsoft and Google platforms. The teacher can send students a link through Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Remind, and more.

During Live Participation mode, the presentation is controlled by the teacher. Students can see content and interact with activities when the teacher advances the slides. Moreover, as a teacher, you can see how many students have replied to the questions or engaged with the activities through the reports. To see how Nearpod looks from both the teacher’s and student’s perspective, click to enlarge the images below.

Overall, Nearpod can serve several functions for teachers:

• Create warm-up activities
• Deliver content
• Assess students’ progress
• Assign asynchronous work
• … and so many more.

Nearpod provides teachers with lots of opportunities to create an interactive learning environment and make lessons more fun!