Using Pear Deck for Google Slides with Distance Learning

What is Pear Deck for Google Slides?

Pear Deck for Google Slides is an Add-on feature that allows educators to add interactive questions and formative assessments to their presentations. 

If you are unfamiliar with Pear Deck for Googles Slides, here is a link to the website that explains how to use it and all of the available features.

https://www.peardeck.com/googleslides 

How do I use Pear Deck for Google Slides? 

I use Pear Deck about 2-3 times a week. It has transformed my original PowerPoint presentations into interactive learning assessments that allow me to provide immediate feedback and keep students engaged. I'm able to clip pieces of information from worksheets or create my own questions. I can choose how I want my students to respond such as, type an answer, multiple-choice, drag an object to an indicated area, draw, etc. 

I love it because it is user-friendly and it motivates my students to contribute to their own learning. It eliminates the need for paper copies and the time to review those papers in order to get feedback on how my students are understanding the material. It allows me to address any misunderstandings or concerns immediately.

How to use Pear Deck for Google Slides with Distance Learning?

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools to close and shift to online learning. Regardless of this situation, I want my students to be able to find some kind of normal when it comes to their new way of learning. Since I have been using Pear Deck for Google Slides the majority of the year, my students are familiar with how it works and the features it has. As an educator, I have been researching ways to get feedback on how my students are understanding the material, and I stumbled across this video about using Pear Deck for distance learning. I was shocked because Pear Deck requires students to join a presentation with a code, so I just assumed this was no longer an option. However in this video, he explains how to assign a Pear Deck for Google Slides in Google Classroom. This will allow me to continue using interactive lessons that give me feedback on how my students are understanding the material that I assign.I think this is amazing for this situation that we are currently in.

I also want to encourage those that are not familiar with Pear Deck for Google Slides to explore these materials and consider how they could benefit your students during this distance learning adventure.