Pear Deck

A few weeks ago, Blake mentioned Pear Deck, a site where you can import or create interactive presentation slides and then students can join via a code. Pear Deck syncs seamlessly with Google Drive which is a great feature for both students and teachers.

The free version of Pear Deck only allows for 5 free imports (from your Google Drive or computer), so most of the "decks" that you do will be retyping worksheets or slideshows that you've created.  It does, however, have a share feature which would allow for each department to not keep reinventing the wheel, and for teachers to parcel out the work for a given unit.

Once you have created a deck and are ready to share with students, they go to the Pear Deck website and join your specific session, much like Kahoot.

After all of your students have joined, you can begin your session.  Students can type, use their finger to write on the trackpad, or use the Wacom tablets.  You can lock down the ability to answer the question at any time, and student screens will go black (you will see this in the video).  From your computer, you can then select which of your students' responses you'd like to share on the projector.  Those responses will be anonymous.  The menu screen also allows you to ask impromptu questions if the conversation leads in that direction.

Using Pear Deck would be a great way to have students review for a test instead of a traditional review packet.  Once you have synced Pear Deck with your Google account, it will be an option for something "New" to create in your Google Drive.

Watch this 2 minute video and see how Claire's class uses Pear Deck to learn about probability.