Ed Tech Tool Reflection: Nearpod

When I first used Nearpod, it required me to sign up and give some information about

myself. I provided my email address, my name, and my educational institution. I signed up as a

teacher, so that is why I had to input more information. If I signed up as a student, I would have

more options for accessing the content. These options make it easier to maintain student privacy.

After I signed in, Nearpod let me take a tour. I viewed a demonstration nearpod presentation

from both the teacher and student perspectives. Here is a view of the screen:

This slide is an example of an engagement question within the presentation. On the teacher’s

side, it shows all participants and their answers to the questions. It also always presents the code

and the whiteboard option. The code is used by students to join the presentation and the

whiteboard feature opens up an area where teachers can draw on the screen, which can assist in

illustrating concepts. The student’s screen is focused on their participation. It removes the

distractions on the teacher’s screen so they can focus on their answers.

 The product seems extremely helpful for engaging students in lectures. Educators can

implement multiple types of questions and games to practice student retrieval of information

covered in the presentation. This will assist in the memorization of materials, helping students

perform better in the class. One thing I did not notice in the demonstration was any accessibility

information. After our class with Kelli, I have been looking into accessibility in products. Next

time I explore Nearpod resources, I will focus on that topic.

I also want to mention that the learning process for this tool was relatively quick. The

demonstration does a great job of showing how the presentations operate. Within the website,

there is an excellent search feature that provides pre-made presentations and other presentation

resources. This is extremely helpful for lesson planning and it may minimize the workload for

some educators, which would be lovely.

The other component of Nearpod I want to highlight is their student-paced resources.

These resources have to be activated by a teacher, but it would work well for asynchronous

classes or extra materials outside of the classroom. I practiced student-paced learning with an

Amanda Gorman presentation. Here is one screenshot from the presentation:

The presentation plays the video of Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem for President Joe Biden

entitled The Hill We Climb. The student watches the video and there are five questions embedded

in the presentation. In the screenshot, the question is at the bottom. When the student hits the

expand button, they can select or type an answer depending on the question. These results will

then be sent to the teacher so they can view them on the lesson due date or use them to measure

student progress. This is a cool feature and I enjoyed learning about self-paced learning within

the tool.

I am excited to learn more about Nearpod. My goals for my next exploration include making a

presentation and exploring accessibility options. So far, I can see myself using this tool when I

teach! I am excited to hear about other tools from the class as well.