What is Pear Deck? How does it work?

A communicationm platform that lets teachers create interactive assessments and presentations that students can follow along on their devices Overview

Pear Deck is an interactive presentation tool used to actively engage students in individual and social learning. Teachers create presentations using their Google Drive account. Students log into the presentation with unique access codes and interact with questions while teachers monitor student and whole-class progress. Pear Deck is a freemium service; teachers and schools can access a wide array of tools and resources for free or opt to subscribe to a premium account.
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APPROACH

Pear Deck combines slide presentations with interactive questions. Founded in 2014, the company’s goal is to foster inquiry-based learning and to bridge the gap between individual and social learning.

Pear Deck for Teachers

Teachers can use Pear Deck to create interactive presentations that allow students to work independently to respond to various questions throughout the ‘deck’. Each Pear Deck presentation begins with an access code presented on the screen. Students are prompted to enter the Pear Deck website and plug in their unique access code. During each session, teachers can see the presentation as well as the students participating. Student responses appear on the teacher screen in real-time. Teachers have the option to lock student screens to prevent them from changing their answers.

Pear Deck also lets teachers determine when and what responses to share with the whole class via the main presentation screen. Teachers can highlight a specific student response, toggle between responses, or in some instances share all student responses. Student responses are anonymous to everyone except the original responder and the teacher. During the presentation, teachers can backtrack to previous slides and add impromptu questions.

Pear Deck lets teachers build interactive decks from their computer or tablet. Teachers sign in to Pear Deck with their Google login where they’ll find Pear Deck materials available in their Google Drive. Pear Deck presentations are created in Google Drive and save just like Google Docs; thus they can be organized and shared with other Google users.

Teachers have the option to present and control each deck directly from their computer or tablet.

While building their decks, teachers can choose from four question types:

·  Draggable questions take the form of agree/disagree or thumbs up/thumbs down

·  Drawing questions allow students to free draw in a blank space or on a grid

·  Free response questions have short text, long text, and number capabilities

·  Multiple choice questions take the form of yes/no, true/false, or A, B, C, D

Through premium Pear Deck features, teachers have access to a session dashboard and can review previous sessions and student takeaways. This additional feature lets teachers analyze student engagement, comprehension, and lesson efficacy.

The Pear Deck website provides a number ofresources for teachers to better understand and use the product including a sample question gallery, help articles and ideas for educators, and a user forum to ask questions. Pear Deck works with both traditional projectors as well as interactive whiteboards.

Pear Deck for Students

Students use Pear Deck to interact with teacher presentations and lessons. At the start of each deck, students log into the presentation with a unique access code. Students can see both the main presentation screen and the screen on their personal device. Responses are dragged, typed, or drawn directly onto the student’s personal device to answer interactive questions. Students can only see the information on their personal device and their names are kept anonymous on the main presentation screen when teachers opt to share class answers.

PRICING

Pear Deck offers users several product options including afree and upgraded version. Tools and resources free to users include access to Google Drive storage, Google Apps integration, three types of interactive question slides, a limited number of PDF and Google Slide imports, and 30 session participants.

Premium or Group pricing is $99.99/year ($11.99/month) for educators and $249.99/month ($29.99/month) for professionals. Schools can request a price quote through the Pear Deck website. Both Premium, Group, and School packages include the same features as the free version in addition to

·  Drawing and Draggable question slides

·  Google Classroom integration

·  Session Dashboard

·  Session Review

·  Student Takeaways

·  Unlimited PDF and Google Slide imports

·  A priority help desk

·  50 session participants

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