Description

Nearpod is a lesson development and delivery application that allows teachers to

create interactive lessons and deliver them to students via unique PIN codes.
Teachers can use the application to interact with and control students activities in
lessons in real time, and students may use either mobile devices or a PC/Mac to
interact with lessons. The application also allows teachers to collect and analyze
data both for individual students and a whole class. The application has a free
silver level that allows limited creation options for lessons, and a paid (monthly or
annually) gold level that allows more diverse objects (like web content, PDFs, and
field trip panoramas) to be included in lessons. Finally, the application featured
pre-created lessons that teachers may purchase and deploy to their classes.
Benefits

Designers can add diverse types of content, like: slides, video, audio, PDFs,
and Twitter feeds.
Designers can add diverse activities to presentations: open ended questions,
polls, quizzes, memory tests, fill in the blank, and drawn responses.
The Field Trip function embeds 360-degree photos (provided by a secondary
vendor, 360 Cities) in a lesson that allow students to immerse in diverse
geographic locations.
Easy access for students: Enter the lesson code into the apps splash screen.
Instructors can mirror their presentations to student mobile devices.
Available for Windows Store. This opens up availability for Windows tablets
and phones.

Constraints

The app is not self-contained. It seems to be a front-end management system

that directs to a web-based interface for designing materials.
Lessons may deploy Adobe Flash, whish will not run on iOS-based devices.
The Field Trip function is limited to what the vendor has provided. There is
not a way to embed third party 360-degree panoramas or teacher-generated
360-degree panoramas.

I did not see a student-registration, only teachers. This suggests that

students cannot freely browse lesson content, but only see those that the
teacher has given them the code to access.
Mirroring does not seem to be synchronous. The apps App Store review page
cites an example of a teacher mirroring a video to multiple students, and the
videos (and corresponding audio) all beginning at different times, creating
noise interference between the devices.
Lesson content on the Nearpod store may require payment.

How To Use
1. Download the application to the mobile device.
2. Create an account with Nearpod.
3. From the What would you like to do? screen, select:
a. My libraryavailable created lessons.
b. Explorelook for created lessons.
c. JoinUse a PIN to access an existing lesson.
d. Createmake a lesson of your own.
e. Reportsgenerate information based on student data.
4. To create a lesson, select Create. Nearpod will pull up a web browser with
the Nearpod Content Tool.
5. Use the Add Slide button to add a slide.
6. Use Add Content, Add Web Content, and Add Activity to choose the
content for that slide. Note: Some features may be hidden behind a paywall
based on the users account level.
7. Depending on the option chosen, choose the final content for the slide.
Create assessments and engagement activities if necessary.
8. To delete a slide, use the Delete Slide button.
9. To preview a presentation, use the Preview button.
10.The More button offers several file-management functions for published
presentations, including copy/paste, duplication, and export as a PDF.
11.When finished, use the red Publish button at the bottom of the screen to
distill the presentation and return to the Nearpod app.
Original Artifacts

Student Use During Learning

Actual student use is limited to entering a code and accessing the lesson
selected by the teacher. However, with attentive lesson design, students do
have options available to them.
Students can collaborate with activities (see benefits)
Students can participate in real-time polls from their tablets.
Students can draw answers or responses using the Draw It interactivity
option.
Students can do spot-checks on their learning as they progress in a lesson.

Teacher Use During Learning

Teachers can mirror lessons to students devices in the classroom.

One reviewer (http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2013/11/28/lessons-learnedusing-nearpod-presentations-on-ipads-with-students/) noted that students
may have issues with attention spans during Nearpod use, so interactivity
features should be heavily deployed.
Teachers can use the reports function to analyze student use and learning
data.
Teachers can deploy lessons as part of a flipped classroom model
Teachers can embed assessments both to measure learning gains as well as
engage and motivate student attention.