Nearpod

Nearpod is an application designed for teachers of children with learning disabilities that promotes technology integration during lessons and allows students to follow along with the lesson on their iPads. This app allows teachers to share their presentations, control students’ activity, assess students, and track progress. Teachers must create an account at www.nearpod.com and download the app on the students’ iPads. Once the teacher creates an account, they can explore the website for pre-made “Nearpods” or presentations. There are paid and free lessons available on the website, but the teacher is also able to create and upload “Nearpods” of their own. When a lesson is downloaded, it appears in the My Library section of the website. The teacher selects the lesson and clicks on Live Session. When a live session is created, the presentation will open along with a pop-up with a pin number for the students to type into their iPads. The students will type in the pin number, sign in with their names, and the lesson will begin. The teacher controls when a slide is changed while the students follow along. When a question is embedded in the presentation, the app records each student’s answer. Teachers are able to assess the students and track their progress during the presentation. The website keeps track of the students’ progress in the Records section under the teacher account.

While creating a Nearpod presentation, there are a variety of options available to make them interactive and to meet the needs of all types of learners. Some of the possible interactive features one can embed in a presentation are videos, questions, links, polls, quizzes, PDF documents, and drawing activities. There are many helpful tutorials on the Nearpod website that teach how to use all aspects of the website and how to create your own Nearpod presentations.