using technology to drive instruction: nearpod
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Do you ever use presentation tools like Powerpoint or Sway to get information to your students? Me too. Do you ever notice that as you’re delivering content and asking questions, your same 4-5 students are always speaking up? That 1 kid is always in the back with eyes glazed over? 2 kids always complain they cannot see the board? At the end of the lesson, you’re not really quite sure how well your students understand the content. Next time you decide to pull out whiteboards to do a formative assessment in the hopes of checking on each and every student. But you find only 3 markers that aren’t dried out and someone used Sharpie on 2 of your boards.
How do you get the kids engaged and monitor how well every student is doing!?
Enter NEARPOD.
If you have never used Nearpod in your classroom, get ready to. Nearpod if an app that allows you to make your teaching presentations available to all students and interactive. You can create slides for students to draw on, type on, or add images to. In the same lesson, you can add a quiz, a fun game, a matching activity, open ended question, polls and more!
Here are some of the ways I use Nearpod in my third grade classroom.
Weekly word sorts- PAPERLESS. Students enter a code, study the words, sort the words, and respond to an open-ended question asking them to use the spelling pattern.
I use Live Nearpod lessons for my whole group time. I create quizzes as spiral review, blank draw it slides become a digital whiteboard for number sense, and I pull in my math resources for students to work on. i have every student engaged and i get information/data about every single student, not just the vocal ones.
Have a curriculum with weekly stories? I pull images of the story into nearpod, insert audio of myself reading the book, and insert quizzes to ask questions every couple of pages. Students have to engage with the questions as they are reading. At the end I have them fill out a graphic organizer that aligns with the story and a matching of vocabulary. Instant center!
Nearpods are perfect for intervention! iF every kid is working on a Nearpod, nobody knows if someone’s working on a lower level activity than they are. If I have a student that needs to be working independently on a lower level, I will give them a code with the content they need.
Fill out graphic organizers together (you on the SmartBoard and every student on their screen). You can even add a poll or quiz at the end to get even MORE info from each student!
Nearpod is great because students do not need to make an account & remember login info. It is so easy for them to enter the code and be in the presentation with you! Students from the front of the room to the back will engage with your lesson and you will get information on each student every single time!
Want to try it out this year!? You can always start by creating an account and looking through the explore tab. Many creators have already made amazing lessons and this is a way for you to get used to the app itself. But when you’re ready to start creating your own lesson, or digitizing your curriculum to use with Nearpod, here’s the steps.
Like most tools, getting better at using Nearpod just takes time and practice. Create an account and start trying different things. You can pull in your favorite task cards from TPT! Before you know it, you’ll be using it every day like me! Because it is JUST THAT GOOD!
Do you want to start using Nearpod this year? I am going to make it super easy for you! I am beginning a series of workbooks walking through every tech tool I use in my classroom and NEARPOD is the first one! This 28 workbook walks you through EVERYTHING to get started with Nearpod this year!
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Happy Teaching!
