Pear Deck: A Review
Pros:
1. Easily compatible with Google. Teachers can import already made Google Slides presentations into Pear Deck.
2. Quick way to increase engagement. Students are more likely to answer digitally than in person.
3. Data collection. Teachers can end the Pear Deck session and save student responses straight into Google Drive. This allows the teacher to check and see how effective a lesson was, how students are doing, and what could be improved upon.
Cons:
1. Heavily reliant on Google. If you aren't in a Google school, you may need to jump through a couple of hoops to utilize Pear Deck effectively.
2. Student work. Some students may rush through the work or type nonsense answers to finish as quickly as possible. It may be hard to keep students on task when the lesson is reliant on them using devices.
Overall, I'd give Pear Deck 4/5 stars. It seems like a quick and effective way to increase engagement. I feel like it wouldn't be as intuitive for me since I am not in a Google School. However, I am curious and will be trying Pear Deck sometime soon.
I use PearDeck a couple of times a few years ago. I will advise that you make sure you and your students have patience with the program as you become accustomed to it. My students were not use to using devices as heavily as we do now and found it very frustrating.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great review Allison thanks for sharing! This sounds similar to Nearpod where google slides can be created within this application and is interactive for students to use live as a class or independently. I will check out peardeck. I like to have various options to use in the classroom when I want students to use tech to complete readings or activities. I am going to try a peardeck slide for my next lesson and see if it works well with 6th grade.
ReplyDeleteI love peardeck. Before using it, I would use note sheets along with my PowerPoints. I’ve found that students are more engaged when they can interact with others during the lesson and see those interaction on the big screen in our room.
ReplyDeleteSomething I love about peardeck is that teachers can set the pace and not allow students to rush through. You can make it so that their slides move with you, go at their own pace, or hop around between different slides. The only thing I don't like about peardeck is I feel like I spend FOREVER making the presentations because I want to be extra about all the ad ons.
ReplyDeleteI used Pear Deck during my student teaching when we assinged scyronouns practice problems in math. I liked that I could watch my students work thorugh math problmes in real time using the writing feature, and it allowed me to provided inidivualized feedback to my students as they were working. However, now that I work at school that uses Microsoft instead of Google, I have not tried to use Pear Deck again.
ReplyDeleteAllison,
ReplyDeleteHave you not used Pear Deck? Are you using Nearpod? My students comment that they like PD because it keeps them engaged during lectures. Good post!