Community reviews for Nearpod

This tool, at its free level, offers basic questioning options which is great. However, Gold offers so much for student engagement and critical thinking. Truly worth the extra money! I used Nearpod back in 2016 to train teachers and had slid it under the rug. This was worth the REvisit!

It's a good teaching tool. I only wished if we could have had some of the features free. Being a tech integrator in my school I didn't get a chance to have many lessons with it to show it as an example to my colleagues as my free trial period expired.

This is one of the best teaching tools I have used to date. It offers so many options for presentation, engagement, teaching and testing. Love it!!

Nearpod is a great learning tool. It is very easy to use by simply uploading your presentation slides into the app. There is also the option of using a student-paced or teacher-paced mode which is fantastic. The student-paced mode allowed students to work at their own pace which ultimately differentiates the learning experience for the students. It could serve my teaching better by having a connection between the activities that students do and Google classroom, especially for the objective questions where the data could directly enter Google classroom for further analysis.

Great teaching tool.

Nearpod allows the teacher to use technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge for successful lessons in today's modern classroom. I struggle with daily assessment and this is a great tool for that. I can put subtle things into lessons to see if they're grasping it. I love the collaborative learning here as well. Students can see their own answers and ideas on the projector as well as their classmates. You can even block the names from being listed so that students feel more comfortable sharing. It's great to be able to scaffold content in order to the students to get a deeper understanding of the material. You can truly account for different types of learning styles. There are multiple ways to represent the material and that's what makes Nearpod such an effective tool.

As a teaching tool. Nearpod is a great application. I liked how all of my students were able to follow the presentation together. They were also able to answer critical thinking questions anonymously, rather than needing to answer to the class in front of the class. Students are able to work on their communication skills, along with explore content they are learning in class in a presentation. One of my favorite parts of Nearpod is being able to ask my students questions, such as multiple choice, short answer, and true false to keep them engaged in the lesson. In science, students are also able to use Phet activities to apply to content learned in class and explore the curriculum topics.

I really believe it is great for students to become interactive in the classroom. The TPACK model says that the technology should not overpower the content of the lesson and I think nearpod is the perfect balance. Students are engaged and can give feed back and poll, it is not simply a teacher reading notes from a PowerPoint. This said, it also forces teachers to interact with the students instead of talking at them, which is great. I think this is great for ELL students because they can follow along with the words on the computer in front of them. It also forces the students to come together as a class and follow along together, instead of all being on different slides. One down side is that this works ideally in a class that has their own technology. I taught a lesson for my college class using Nearpod and everyone had their own computers. However I went to public middle and high school and did not have my own computer or iPad for class. Therefore, this would be of no use to me or my teachers, since the whole point is for everyone to follow along with the same presentation. This app is not simply a substitution for a PowerPoint, it elevates it to something that is useful for teachers and students in a way that they can both learn and receive feedback as well as making the content more interesting and relatable.

This tool is a great way to deliver presentations with ppt slides, while being able to increase student involvement. Students enjoy having the slides play on their own devices because it makes it easier for them to view the content. Mostly they enjoy being able to answer teacher questions without having to raise their hands and speak in front of the class. This also prompts participation from students who may be nervous about speaking in class. Moreover, the teacher can ensure 100% participation in discussions or in answering questions. It can also allow the teacher to track student understanding through formative assessment tasks during the lesson in a way that may be more complete than asking students to raise hands or answer in person. The participation aspect of this software is definitely a case of technology in the classroom improving the overall educational experience for students and changing their learning experiences. Because of this, nearpod is not just a technological substitute, but a modification if used with all of the interactive features. And, importantly, it improves the ability of the instructor to assess student learning and thus improve their own teaching.

While I think that NearPod is a low level technological change-- really it is just substitution with the added benefit of engagement-- I do think it can have a large impact on motivating students to participate and collaborate. I think it also adds for differentiation for auditory and creative learners.