Nearpod - Bringing digital content to your lessons

Have you ever wanted to use a PowerPoint presentation with your lesson, but not had a board/screen on which to project? My school has Interactive Whiteboards, and some schools in Israel have projectors in each classroom - but not everyone has such technology at their disposal.  But most of our students now have smartphones! Problem solved! (Providing the phones are connected to the internet via wifi or their phone package.)

I was working with a group of counselors this week, and, while we were in a very technology-rich setting, in a room that had all the bells and whistles, for part of the session, we were divided into groups and could not all use the main projector.

Enter: Nearpod! 

Nearpod is a free application that enables  you to share a PowerPoint presentation, simultaneous with anyone who is hooked up with your presentation, on smartphones, tablets, laptops or PCs, and YOU control the progression of the slides!  

You can use NearPod:

• in the classroom.
• for synchronous online sessions (it’s easy to use with Google Hangouts on Air!).
• at any venue that has access to internet / wifi - even outside (providing you are in conditions that enable you to read the screen - meaning not in strong, direct sunlight.)

Do not be discouraged if you or your students try to download the app to your phone, and you get the message that your phone is not compatible (I almost flipped out when I saw that message ;-). If this happens, your participants can use it with their phones via the phone’s browser.

You can invite your students to a session beforehand by sending them an email from Nearpod, with the URL for the session and the PIN number.  They can go in, but it won’t start showing anything until YOU start the “show”!

You can share materials from different media: PowerPoint presentations, PDF, MP4, websites, interactive polls and lots more. While you are presenting the material, you can see how many students are connected to your presentation, with the counter in the upper left hand corner of your screen (if a student disconnects by opening another app, the counter will show that.)

There are also free lessons that you can download and use. I just played around with a nice one named “Get to Know Each Other” that could be a really nice way to start the new year, or get to know others in any new group. It includes interactive questions, opportunities to  share drawings or pictures, and other questions that will help participants learn a little bit more about each other.  

For Nearpod’s Guides, click here.

I was really pleased with how it worked, and the other counselors in the group were excited about the potential it holds, as well!

If you like the idea of this type of slide sharing, you might also want to explore “Every Slide”, which is another application I heard of JUST before i was about to go in and present with Nearpod, but haven’t had time to experiment with yet. (If I get to do so soon, I will share my impressions and comparisons, as well.)

I think these new options are REALLY exciting, and go one step further to bringing digital content to all of our classes! Can you think of situations in which this tool will help you? If so, please share, below! And if you DO try it out, let us know how it goes!

Digitally yours,

@dele  

PS Thanks to Efrat Maatoof for suggesting this tool! Check out her blog - she has oodles of great ideas (providing you read Hebrew)

Timelines.... You'd be surprised how useful they can be!

Here's another one of those tools that I had been trying to figure out for a while. It's called Timeline JS (find it at:  http://timeline.knightlab.com/). It took me a bit of playing around with it, and some "workarounds" as they are called (work·a·round  ˈwərkəˌround/  noun COMPUTING a method for overcoming a problem or limitation in a program or system). 

I wanted to use this tool, which is an interactive, multimedia timeline producer, as a way to get people to introduce themselves at a workshop, in an unusual way - (something I had seen one of my mentors do a while back, and just HAD to figure out). 

The good news is: I finally figured it out. (It entailed using a Googleform that would feed into a Google Spreadsheet, which I would use for copying and pasting data that the participants would send me..... but that is not the usual way to use this tool, as I said - just a fun way to show off a bit ;-)

The even BETTER news is: this is a simple timeline tool that can be used in the classroom collaboratively by both teacher AND students, and it is a lot easier than I had expected!

There are a lot of occasions I can think of just off the top of my head, when a timeline tool can come in handy.

For example: one of the topics we often use in my school for an umbrella topic for projects is "Making a Difference", where the students must choose a famous person who made a difference in the world, and research him or her. Making a timeline of these peoples' lives, using photos, video footage, maps, etc. can really bring the major milestones of a famous person, their achievements, highlights and other interesting events, to life!

Another way to take advantage of this tool could be to make a timeline of events in a piece of literature you are teaching, to help your students follow plot development. It could be used for a short story, a novel or play, or even as a book report task! 

The example that I used here is a partial timeline for the play All My Sons, by Arthur Miller, which many of us teach in high schools in Israel.  It is not complete at the time of publication of this blog post, but the beauty of it is, it can be added to and reposted. So, if you have a look in a few days' time, maybe I will have had time to upload some more events in the story, and they will automatically be seen on this timeline.  Of course, some of the dates are ones I just made up (since it is not mentioned WHEN the events actually happened, I made up approximate dates for the purposes of getting them in the timeline.)

As you can see from this sample, it really drives it home in a more multidimensional way than could just a regular word-file timeline. 

It's absolutely easy enough for teachers to use, and to teach to their students.  Here is a clear, short tutorial that explains how it works.

Here is a longer, more detailed walk-thru.

               

So, what do YOU think? How could YOU use this tool with your classes? I would LOVE to hear YOUR ideas!

Digitally yours,

@dele

It’s getting near the end of the year – time to play around

It’s that time of year when a gazillion classes are cancelled, you have basically finished what you intended to do in the syllabus, and yet, you still have a lesson or two left. So what do you do?

Tomorrow is my last lesson in the 10^th grade, and we’re going to PARTY!!!!  But, of course, I have my reputation to keep up… so I’m doing it digitally!

First of all, at the end of our previous lesson, I planted the seed (told them that everyone should think of something to bring for brunch.) Then I sent out notifications on What’s App reminding them. Finally, I shared a Google Spreadsheet with the students so they can sign up and write exactly what they are bringing, and see what the others are bringing, as well, so there are no double-ups. (Ok – not everyone has signed up yet – but I trust no one will go hungry)

And what are we going to do while we are chewing?

Well, I have prepared a quiz asking questions about different things that we learnt this year (but not only…. also procedural questions that only kids in my class would know). I had actually asked the students to send me trivia questions that only someone who was in the lessons would know, but none have yet been forthcoming.
  

Using these questions, I have prepared a Kahoot!  Kahoot! (the exclamation mark is part of the name ;-) is a game-based classroom response system. It uses the principles of gamification, to conduct polls, discussions and quizzes. After building a quiz, you project the screen on the smartboard or through the computer and projector. The students have to download the Kahoot! App. to their smartphones, and they’re ready to play! (If they can't download the app, they can still play by writing "kahoot.it" in their phone's browser. This is also a way to play from laptops and tablets.) 

When you go into your game, a Game-pin number is projected on the board. All the students sign into the game using that number. They are asked for a nickname, and as they sign in, all of their names pop up on the board. Once everyone is signed in, the fun begins. The questions are projected on the board, there is music in the background (warning: it CAN be kind of annoying – you might want to turn it down) and a clock for the count down of how many seconds are left to answer.

After everyone has answered, there is a leaderboard, showing what the correct answer was and announces the people with the 5 top scores so far, and what their scores are. On their devices, the students are told what their placement in and how many points they are behind the leader.

I have used it as a participant, and was very impressed. It is sort of like Socrative only way cooler. I played it with my son today (he thought it was a lot of fun). I will bring in my tablet and my laptop in case some kids are without smartphones. And worst case scenario, they can double up on devices, and play as teams.  

Maybe next year, I will have students make their own quizzes to bring to the class!

The platform is colorful, VERY user- friendly, and really gets the participants hoppin’!  I can’t wait to see what the students in my class think about it tomorrow!

I think it’s a great way to finish up the school year – what do YOU think? Check it out: Kahoot!

Digitally yours,

@dele

Of course, not EVERYTHING is digital! The muffins and other things everyone is bringing for a class brunch are real ;-) 

Just as a follow up - the game was a GREAT hit! My students made me promise to use it again next year. 

Although we had some challenges with kids not being able to connect to the wifi of the school, they doubled up, I brought my laptop, tablet and smartphone, and handed that out to some of them, as well. I am not quite sure if they would have had the same problems if they had downloaded the Kahoot! prior to the lesson, but ..... here is what it looked like (for purposes of privacy, I have covered their faces, so, unfortunately you cannot see the excited looks in their eyes. But believe me: they were excited and enthralled!!!! I asked questions that were topic related (related to literature they had learned), general literature questions, and questions about our classroom (ex: what is the hand sign that Adele does when she wants our attention?) The game was exciting, since one specific student lead throughout, and at the very end, another pair pulled up and overtook him! I hope I have left them feeling that we have closed the year with fun and good food (not in the photo - that was after the Kahoot! ;-)