Nearpod is the place to be

Platform: online-based, but student access it well on iPads

Grade Levels: all, theoretically

Subjects: all

Purpose & Features: Nearpod is the coolest tech platform I've seen this year - it can transform a lesson, it's easy to use, and the students love using it. Let me try to explain it first. It's like Powerpoint on steroids. You can create interactive mobile presentations, interspersing traditional picture/text slides with interactive slides (multiple choice quizzes, free responses, drawing, etc.) where students contribute their input to the presentation. You can choose to broadcast student feedback on a classroom screen for the class to see, or view it themselves as a formative assessment tool. After the presentation, you can go back and view students' responses and see all of the data you gathered from your lesson. You can also have students browse websites and go on virtual field trips in your presentations!

But how does it work? First, teachers sign up for an account - it is free for limited features, or you can pay up for a Gold account (or you can get all the features if your school has an account). You can create your presentation using a very simple interface on the Nearpod website. Students download the free Nearpod and connect to your presentation through a pin number generated by Nearpod, but they do not need to create an account. You can choose two presentation styles for students: "Live lesson," which means you control the pace of the slides or "Student-paced," which means that students control the pace of the slides. "Student-paced" is an excellent choice for a make-up lesson, independent work time, or even homework.

Screenshot of a new lesson canvas. You can add slides manually, or import PowerPoint slides, photos, or PDFs to create your presentation.

You can add content like a traditional slide, or try out the new 3D models, virtual field trips, or Sway presentations through your Microsoft Office 365 account.

Share a lesson with a class using a pin. You can see the students who join the lesson and monitor who is following your presentation and who has logged out.

Here are, in my personal opinion, some great things about using Nearpod:

• Easy to make a presentation - very intuitive online interface.
• Students can sign in for a live lesson and then you control their activity (you can see from your teacher view when they leave the presentation). This can be a good management tool. Students can also browse a particular website on their iPads within a presentation, but they won't be able to stray from that site.
• Virtual Reality Fieldtrips are awesome and students love them - I recently used one to get students to help picture the setting of a short story we were reading.
• Poll activity feature helps provoke discussion (I used a Nearpod to present in a faculty meeting once and teachers asked if we could use it more because the poll feature allowed the group to see everyone's opinions, not just those who talked in the meeting).
• It's easy to go back and look at report of how students responded to polls, quizzes, open-ended questions, etc.

What have I used Nearpod for, so far?

• Teaching new concepts and reviewing concepts for a language remediation course
• Framework for student debate after reading a news article
• As a comprehension guide for a short story: pre-reading activities, comprehension questions & post-reading comprehension activities
• Presentation to faculty about Core Apps we're using in our middle school
• Presentation to parents about iPads

...But Wait! There's More!

Nearpod also features pre-made lessons and academic content, ready for you to use and fully editable. There is a range of content available - at academic levels ranging from kindergarten to adult. Nearpod has also made Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship curriculum available as Nearpod presentations. Also available: quick icebreaker activities for homeroom, skills introductions and practice in math, social studies lessons using Nearpod's Virtual Reality Fieldtrips, grammar lessons and lessons surrounding a particular text in ELA, and much, much more!

If you have a school license, this content is free. For individual users, some content is free and some requires payment.

A selection of pre-made content in Nearpod's library.

Teaching students to be tech-savvy is also teaching them how to turn off their devices

In time for Thanksgiving, here's a great resource for parents and school communities to consider - it's The Family Dinner Project's "Tech at the Table" page.

Sometimes, the best use of technology at certain moment is putting away the device altogether. I think the mindset behind Common Sense Media's #DeviceFreeDinner Challenge can be applied to school and classroom time as well.

Free Math Manipulative Apps

In my experience, Math apps are plentiful, expensive, and many are of questionable quality. I suspect that some teachers want a math app to use in place of an adequate math curriculum. If only teaching math were that easy...

My math teaching experience is limited, but what I've found is that that iPad touchscreen can be a great environment for virtual math manipulatives. Virtual manipulatives can save time, storage space, money, and the annoying situation of policing students building 10-block towers...

Here are some useful math manipulative apps:

1. Schoolkit Math: This app is simple, straightforward, and good for lower elementary students as well as middle school students. The app contains a wide range of virtual manipulatives, including, but not limited to a number line, counters, hundreds chart, tens frame, clock, money, fraction kit, number houses, dot grid, bar graph, multiplication arrays, shapes, ruler, and algebra tiles. The app also contains a Thinking Journal in which students can explain their thought processes using screenshots from the app or photos from the camera roll. They then can email or print their journals as PDFs.

Screenshot of the money page on Schoolkit Math

2. Math Learning Center Apps: These apps are also simple and great for reinforcing basic concepts visually - probably best for the elementary school set. Their database of apps includes Geoboard (remember the rubber bands and metal pegs of old?), Number Pieces (place value), Number Line, Number Frames, Fractions, Math Vocab Cards, Money Pieces, Pattern Shapes, Number Rack (like an abacus).

They also have web versions of each of these apps!

Screenshot of area calculation on Geoboard

3. Let's Do Maths Dial-a-Fraction: Yes, they're British. The dial-a-fraction feature helps students see how changes in the value of numerator and the denominator change the fraction - good for reinforcing basic fraction concepts. Features in this app are limited and you do need to pay up to use certain features.

4. MathPapa: This app is more for middle school teachers since it's all about algebra. Students type in an algebra problem and the app will solve it and show the steps its takes to solve it. This is a great tool for checking work and a good homework resource. You need to pay for the "pro" version to remove the ads.

5. Virtual Manipulatives: This app contains manipulatives for fractions, decimals, and percents. It allows students to quickly see equivalents. Students can draw on the board to label elements or work problems and then save their board as a picture in their photos. This is definitely an app that you need to explicitly teach students how to use and is probably best used in class for specific lessons.

Screenshot of the features of the board - pieces are also available for decimals and percents