Thursday, February 11, 2016

Nearpod vs. Powerpoint

Maybe you saw Jeff Feinstein's post about Nearpod a few days ago. I just tried it and love it.

The cool thing about Nearpod is its interactivity. You simply upload a powerpoint presentation to Nearpod, add video clips, quizzes, polls or graphs and publish it. Students access your  presentation with a pin and then see it on their phones. You control the presentation on your computer and advance the slides with your lecture.

I created an introductory lesson to Islam. It includes three short video clips (each less than 3 minutes), links to three different websites for research, and three short formative quizzes.

Here's how I did it. I took an existing powerpoint about Islam, uploaded it to Nearpod and then began editing it by adding video clips in strategic places (for example, a clip about the Five Pillars after a slide outlining them).  Next I added a couple of short multiple choice questions about the video.

In another area of the powerpoint, I added a link to a webpage about jihad, then another video clip about it.

You can see my effort below. Just remember it's my first one and not by any means perfect.

2 comments:

Christine said...

Awesome! I have heard a lot about Nearpod but didn't really know what it did aside from pushing out a presentation to students and allowing you to move them through it at your pace. Very cool about what you can add to the presentation!

Carla Ingram said...

I use Nearpod all the time and love it! Would you be willing to share your Islam Nearpod with me so I can use it with my students?