I am a fortunate educator: I work in an institution that has the resources to put an iPad in the hands of all its full-time instructors. Like many of my colleagues, I was excited when I first received the iPad; however, my expectations in terms of interactivity were higher than what the iPad initially seemed able to deliver. Grading, attendance, and course management tools were now easily at my fingertips whenever I wanted them, but I felt like the essential piece—student engagement and true interactivity that would foster creative critical thinking—was still not there.

Enter Nearpod. I devote about an hour a week to my personal learning network on Twitter, and recently I ran across a blog entry on Education Week titled “Simply Putting Tech in Front of Students Won’t Engage Them” (Ferlazzo, 2014). The blog entry received a response from the authors of Teaching With Tablets (Frey & Fisher, 2013), which mentioned the Nearpod app by name, along with a handful of other apps.

One of the things I found appealing about Nearpod is the fact that it will run on virtually any device. I didn’t have to worry about my students having an iPad; the app runs on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, on Android devices, and on laptops. As I teach in a university setting, it is quite rare that a student will not have at least one of these devices. It was easy to locate the app in the app store, and the download was fast. The app is free, but offers a premium level of service for an additional fee. The extended features, which cost $10 a month if billed annually, include increased storage space, larger presentation sizes, Nearpod “homework,” extra presentation features, and additional student capacity for live sessions (50 versus 30 in the free version).

Creating a presentation is quite simple. You have the option of dragging in existing files (PPT, PDF, and image, sound, or video files) or starting from scratch with a new presentation. I chose to start from scratch my first time, just to become familiar with the features. The presentation home screen is clean and easy to navigate, with only a few buttons in addition to thumbnails of your individual slides. Slides can include a variety of interactive items, such as live Twitter streams, open-ended questions, polls, quizzes, and “draw it.” Adding web content is an option for premium users only, although you are allotted a brief trial period to experiment with web content if you so desire. If I were to consider purchasing a premium level of service, it would primarily be to seamlessly integrate web content—something I did find lacking in the free version.

Once your presentation is complete, all that remains is to publish it. When you are ready to use it with your class, just open the presentation on your iPad or other device and begin a live session. A pin code is then generated on your screen; students input this code into their individual device to join your session. With a live session, the teacher controls the pacing; as you advance the slides on your device, the slides also advance on students’ devices. When you reach a question or poll slide, you may decide how much time to give students to answer the question—you may wait for all students to respond, or you may move on after a predetermined amount of time. The students’ devices are essentially mirroring your device, and students are able to follow along with you every step of the way.

I have found that students of the digital age are not often impressed by new technology. Tech is just a part of their daily existence. I will say, however, that the “coolness” factor of Nearpod is high. I heard more than a few exclamations of appreciation for the fact that the presentation and questions were literally right at the students’ fingertips.

I used a SMART Board to display students’ answers as they were being typed in. Nearpod tells you, the teacher, who chose which answer. Since this first use of Nearpod was a character development activity (I teach an English Through Drama course), the students really enjoyed seeing the answers of their classmates and it helped us build a more cohesive idea of how the characters were connected on a larger scale.

The activities I used Nearpod for were primarily open-ended activities, so I found that displaying the responses on the SMART Board was very useful for us. Students enjoyed seeing their entries and those of their classmates. However, the display feature could have negative effects if you are using Nearpod as a formative assessment tool to determine the level of understanding that students may have of a particular topic. Since each response is tied directly to a student’s name, students may fear giving an incorrect answer. This can be remedied by providing anonymous usernames that match the student ID number, but it will make it slightly more difficult for you to analyze the reports later. Alternatively, you can choose not to display the answers for the whole class—just viewing them on your personal device—but I think that could cause a reduction in the level of class engagement.

One of the downsides that I discovered during the first live session is that open-ended questions leave a lot of room for time management problems to arise. Some students answer the open-ended questions quite quickly, while others take a lot of think time to consider how to answer. There are several ways that I chose to remedy this issue in future presentations. The first option is to impose a time limit on answering the open-ended questions. In my high-level English class, I chose to limit response time to 60 seconds during my subsequent live sessions. The second option, which I have not yet tested, would be to differentiate open-ended questions by allowing for varying levels of complexity in the answers (e.g., easy question: What does your character want most in life? intermediate question: What does your character want most in life and why do they want it? advanced question: What does your character want most in life? What happened to them in the past that causes them to want this?). The third option is to use open-ended questions only for questions that are not likely to have overly complex answers. I found that this worked best for questions like “Choose one adjective to describe yourself.”

After the live session is completed, you have a chance to view reports. The reports include the total percentage of questions answered by each student and their overall participation rate. You are also able to drill down into individual questions to see how each student responded. Viewing the in-class responses and going back later to revisit the detailed reports are both highly useful assessment tools. I found that it was easy to determine which students needed additional help or clarification, and I was able to adjust my future lessons (or provide one-on-one remediation) accordingly.

I close with a short list of the pros and cons that I discovered while using Nearpod for a few weeks, as well as recommendations for how this resource can best be used in a classroom setting. Of course, all resources need to be adapted for your individual teaching circumstances, but there are a few things I believe Nearpod does well that will translate across teaching contexts.

Pros

• free
• high level of student engagement
• high initial “coolness” factor
• easy to use
• available for all device types
• excellent for formative assessment
• promotes team dynamic

• Some services are available only with paid upgrade. Integrated web content is the thing I find most lacking in the free version.
• The “coolness” factor can wear off after a few exposures to the tech.
• The app doesn’t easily allow for anonymity of responses.
• There is potential for time management problems with some question types.
• If you have a slow wireless connection in your building (or a spotty cell phone network connection), you could spend time waiting for slides to load.

Best for

• team building
• informal assessment
• formative assessment
• limited response questions
• increasing engagement

Ferlazzo, L. (2014, April 14). Response: “Simply putting tech in front of students won't engage them.” Education Week . Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html

Frey, N., & Fisher, D. (2013). Teaching with tablets: How do I integrate tablets with effective instruction? Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.