Nearpod

Introduction

Nearpod is a kind of technology-integrated learning environment that allows teachers to create presentations, interactive activities and assessments, organized in lessons. A number of formats are supported (e.g. text, power points, PDFs, pictures, videos, including some form of virtual reality (VR) lessons. Each of these can be inserted into a slide. Lessons exported to students can run as mobile applications or as web client. Student activities can be tracked, e.g. the teacher can see activity completion.

See also:

• learning management system

Authoring and deployment

Authoring

A lesson is composed by a set of slides, i.e. a principle that can be found in Powerpoint or Articulate decks.

Nearpod (test) lesson showing different types of slides (May 2019)

Each slide can include either or all of

• Contents, concluding slides that can be edited online, Nearpod 3D, PHET simulations, Nearpod field trips, BBC videos, Sway applications, Slideshows, videos, Audio, PDF, and Life twitter streams.
• Web contents: display web pages (URL required)
• Activities includes open ended questions, matching pairs, quiz, drawing, collaboration boards, Polls, Fill in the blanks, memory test,

Nearpod (test) slide creation, "Add Content" selected (April 2019)

Teachers can test a lesson in both student and teacher view.

Deployment

Once a lesson is ready it can be share with students, e.g. via email, social networks, links (e.g. in a school website or an LMS) or google classroom. A lesson can be taken in two ways: teacher-paced or self-paced.

Teacher-paced means that the activity can be synchronized by a teacher. E.g. he/she can require that students post notes to a collaboration board and discuss these before continuing. The teacher will provide students with a code that allows starting a lesson.

Student-paced means that learners can do the whole lesson at their pace.

In both cases, the teacher can track student activities.