Week 6: Nearpod Tutorial!
This week I created a tutorial on how to use nearpod. This is a new web tool 2.0 that I came across recently. My dad actually introduced it to me months ago but I hadn't found the time to explore it until taking Education 776. This is actually one of the best resources I have found on the internet to use in the classroom. Nearpod is an interactive lesson that is done all online. Students using 1-1 devices participate in the lesson and explore from their seats as you explore from the board. The website allows you to create your own lesson or use one of the thousand different lessons in the Nearpod library. While I was getting to know this tool, I was amazed by how many different FREE lessons are available to use in the classroom. The library allows you to search by grade level, standard, subject, or type of activity.
As a really busy teacher, I love that they give me ready to use lessons instead of just the option to create my own lesson. Lessons are interactive and encourage student participation. Students are engaged the entire time. They participate in questions, polls, drawings, open ended questions, and other activities that are embedded right into the lesson. I am lucky to teach in a school where every student has access to a device. However, even if your classroom does not have access to 1-1 devices, the lessons can still be done on the board and students can just come up to participate. I have a very squirrely group this year, so engagement is key! I love that the students are engaged the entire time. I also love that I can check for understanding instantly within the lesson. This throws the worksheet versions of formative assessment out the window.
I highly recommend this web tool to any teacher, at any grade level. There is an option to upgrade the program to premium, but the free version has a ton of options as well. When you first sign up they set up your page specific to you. You tell them what grade level you teach and what subjects you teach. When creating your own lesson, you can import material that you have already created in the form of pdfs, powerpoints, or images. You can add video and sound into the lesson, which always gets the attention of students. The web version is also availabe in an app version. You can teach a lesson right from your phone or device! Check out the graphic below to see just how easy it is to engage your students and provide a lesson that allows them to learn collaboratively and critically! Go Nearpod!
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| Photo courtesy of Nearpod.com |
I love Nearpod! I used it for the first time a couple of months ago. I liked that it was super easy to integrate what I wanted to add and I could make it as interactive as I wanted it to be. There are endless possibilities for it's use in and out of the classroom!
ReplyDeleteHow awesome that you get to share teaching resources with your dad!! I've used Nearpod with middle school students to teach about plagiarism so I agree with you that it keeps kids engaged. Thanks for showing the resources that teachers can copy directly. Sometimes we forget that there are things in place for us to use that we don't have to produce from scratch.
ReplyDeleteWow! I am already obsessed with this tool and I haven't even created my account yet. I'm very excited and you have completely sold me on using this in my classroom. I love the idea of having engagement and involvement through the majority of the lesson. My students are lucky enough to have 1:1 iPads all day long so I will definitely be exploring Nearpod and searching some of my lesson topics to see what pops up! Thanks so much for sharing. This is awesome!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding me about Nearpod. I signed up for an account about 3-4 years ago, but never used it. Since you created a great screencast on how to use Nearpod, this site looks more user friendly than I anticipated. I've been keeping a running Doc of all this site/apps that I want to try and Nearpod was just added to my list. I just explored Nearpod and added a lesson about projection maps, rocks, and American Indians. I can't wait to use this with my kids!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great resource, especially for new teachers like myself! This website looks like a huge time saver. I'm always looking for a way to infuse as many visuals into my lessons as I can, as most of my students are language learners. This may prevent me from adding to my tomb of anchor charts (a.k.a. my closet), where I can never find anything I need.
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