Universal Design Book: Editing a Nearpod

Universal Design Book

Editing A Nearpod

By: Alex Bachmann

Meet the Coaches

In this book, you will see the coaches giving tips or asking guiding questions.

Pedro is here for Technology tips.

Hali is here for Teacher tips.

Student Response Area

On some pages, there will be a place for you to write your responses to any prompts or questions throughout the book. These are only temporary, so if you want to save your responses, please make sure to copy your work into a word document before leaving the book.

Text-To-Speech

On the left side of the screen, you will see the TextHelp toolbar. This allows "Text-To-Speech" (TTS). You can use this tool to read any of the text aloud. The green button will read aloudd. The yellow thought bubbles with translate a word to Spanish.

Vocabulary Support

If there is a highlighted word underlined with a dotted line, this means that you can click it to see the definition.

Hyperlinks

Any words underlined and bright blue will be a hyperlink, this means it will take you to a new internet page.

Finding the Nearpod Library

The first thing you need to do in order to edit a Nearpod activity is find the Nearpod Library.

Once logged into Nearpod, if you look to the left you can find the Nearpod Library, which is circled in the image to the left.

Searching the Nearpod Library

You can begin by typing in keywords for specific content and also using the filters shown to the right to narrow your search.

Browsing the Nearpod Library

There is also a feature that allows you to browse through the Nearpod library through different categories. 

Add Lesson to your Library

Once you find a lesson you like, you must add it to your library using the button circled below.

Once added, you can then go back to your Nearpod Library. Once there you can begin editing the Nearpod you saved!

Editing

To start, you can begin editing by either adding a new "content & activity" or you can select one of the slides already available. 

If you select a slide already available, you can delete it, copy it, paste a previously copied slide, or convert it to "Draw it"

If you chose to "add content & activities", you have many options on what you can add to the lesson.

Below are the options you can choose from.

If you click here, you can go to Nearpod's content and activity features, where you can click on each option to better understand what the different content and activities are and how they can be used.

To edit a slide already on the lesson, double click on that slide.

Once you are in the editing portion of the slide, you can change the theme, layout, and different formatting features as shown above. 

Depending on the type of slide, you may have different formatting features.

Add ons

Depending on the type of Nearpod you choose to do, some students may move quickly through the lesson. For those students that do, I like providing options on "further" activities.

At the end of lessons, you can give options on some activity they can do while they wait for others to finish or for the teacher to step in.

Some options include:

Clusive - Clusive is an adaptive and accessbile web-based reader designed for independent reading. It scaffolds development based on reading skills. This is a good option for students who like English or Reading, or what to bolster those skills.

iSolveIt Math Puzzles - iSolveIt math puzzles include MathSquared and MathScaled. They are puzzles that are felxible in their entry poins and pathways and can be integrated at any time in the classroom. They help promote reasoning and roblem solving skills. This is a good option for students who like Math or want to bolster their skills in the subject. 

It is important to give the students the choice on the add on options because "we can provide all our students with technological ways to enhance their learning, no matter their academic label" (Usher, 2019). Both of these digital tools include personalized learning, which "enables teachers to closely monitor and respond to student engagement" (McGraw, 2017). 

Planning for your lesson

To help plan for your lesson that you will either be editing or making from scratch, it is important to map out your thoughts.

Please click here to be brought to Corgi, an effective tool for mapping and organzing your thoughts. Please choose the "Question Exploration Guide" as shown below. 

Use the following information to begin:

Essential Question: What are the learning outcomes you hope for your students to achieve when going through the Nearpod lesson you are going to create/edit?

Key terms: Learning Outcome

Supporting Questions:

1. What grade level?

2. What subject?

3. How do you want them to show you that they achieved the learning outcome?

This mapping can be added to your e-portfolio, which you are "able to go back and rework various components", allowing you to see your progress throughout the training. (Mason, 2006, p. 129).

By the end of this book you should be able to:

1. Search or browse for a Nearpod lesson

2. Save a Nearpod lesson and edit it

3. Organize your thoughts and possible learning outcomes for your Nearpod Lesson

Resources

Mason, R. (2006). Learning technologies for adult continuing education. Studies in Continuing Education, 28(2), 121–133.        https://doi.org/10.1080/01580370600751039

McGraw Hill. (2017, Sept 1). 3 ways to create a student-centered learning environment using technology. Medium. https://medium.com/inspired-ideas-prek-12/3-ways-to-create-a-student-centered-learning-environment-using-technology-2ba9dce92682

Nearpod. (2022). Help center. Nearpod. https://nearpod.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

Usher, K. (2019, April 10). Differentiating by offering choices. Edutopia.                     https://www.edutopia.org/article/differentiating-offering-choices