Nearpod - When ELT meets smart phones

When everybody literally can't live without a smart phone, what's better than incorporating smart phones with ELT? I recently encountered an amazing educational tool, Nearpod, which works fantastically both on a computer and a smartphone to make lessons more interactive than ever!

What is Nearpod?

Nearpod is an educational tool which provides "all-in-one" presentation, assessment and polling application for classrooms and smart devices. The app provides the ability to upload existing presentation as well as create new ones from scratch. The tool allows teachers to add interactive features such as question/ answer polling, surveys, drawings, quizzes and videos. The pace of the presentation is controlled from the teacher's computer or other smart devices like iPad or smart phones and the content will be pushed to the app of students' devices.

Let's watch this quick introduction for some basic features of this app!

How is Nearpod different from other presentation tool?

- Available for both live and homework session:

Different from other presentation tool which are mostly pre-recorded, Nearpod supports live session in which teachers can give instant feedback to students. On the other hand, students can also attend a homework session anywhere and anytime just like other presentation tool.


- Support great varieties of interactive activities:

Nearpod allows teachers to make presentation slides with highly interactive features like multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, fill in the blanks, memory card, polls, videos, quizzes, drawing pad and web links. For other presentation tools, they mostly just support embedding web links, videos and MC questions only.


- Suitable for both formative and informative assessment:

With the quiz function, teachers can customised quizzes that can be used as assessment tools. Learners are required to type in their names before doing a quiz. Teachers can get the statistics of each student as well as the the whole class.  This way, teachers can gain a good idea of the classes overall understanding of the subject materials.






- Need to use the Nearpod app on a smart device

While supporting the access of a session on any web browser, the availability of the Nearpod app can ensure the preservation of layout of the presentation format.

Things to concern

• It is more suitable for a student-centred BYOD class. It is difficult to share a smart device with those who forget to bring their own devices because the smart devices are pretty small.

• The live session is highly dependent on the internet connection. If the internet connection isn't stable, both students and the teacher will keep dropping out from the session and will have to join in again.

• Students will have to input a five-letter code generated by Nearpod for joining a particular live session. Teachers will have to make sure every one have the right code to access to the live session.

• Make sure students have the most updated version of the Nearpod app before class in order to avoid the compatibility issue.

• It may reduce interactions and eye contact between students as well as the instructor.

Creating your own presentations

First of all, you will need to sign up (Download links: Nearpod for iOS  |  Nearpod for Android |  Nearpod Web) for a free account or you can simply create one with your Google account. Once your account is created, use your email and password to login.

Now go through all these videos one-by-one as they will guide you through how to use all the wonderful features of Nearpod.

1. Creating a presentation

If you want to use your previous presentations, you can start by uploading an existing presentation from PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Drive or any other programme. The key is that you will need to covert your original presentation to a PDF file and then upload to Nearpod.

TIP: You can save Powerpoint slides as .JPG or .PNG files which are accepted by Nearpod as image uploads.

Then you can add other interactive features which are available in Nearpod for a Nearpod presentation.

2. Creating a poll

They are survey questions where there is no option for correct/ incorrect answers.

3. Creating a Q&A

It is a quick way to get real time checking for understanding

4. Creating a quiz

Instead of a single question, have students to answer a series of questions at their own pace.

5. Adding a video

Insert an MP4 (must be uploaded) to play back on any smart devices.

6. Adding a draw-it

Have students to draw over a blank canvas or an image. Teachers can choose which one to share to the group.

7. Publishing a presentation

Some quick ideas for using Nearpod in English lessons

• Why not ask your students to draw the meaning of the vocabulary to add some fun to the class?

• Want to make sure your students read the text you assigned? Add a short quiz right after they finished reading the text!

• Want a quick hands up from your class to show their preference? Use the poll function instead!

Show Time!
Instead of showing you my Nearpod presentation, I found a really wonderful Nearpod English session to share with you guys. Hope you enjoy my sharing! :D





Sources

10 ways of using Nearpod in the Classroom. (2014, March 20). Retrieved March 27, 2016, from http://www.learninginspired.com/10-ways-of-using-nearpod-in-the-classroom

NearPod - Making Tech Simple. (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2016, from http://www.makingtechsimple.com/nearpod