PearDeck

Pear Deck slides are made in Google Slides. But instead of simply presenting informational slides, Pear Deck makes your slides interactive so every student can respond to your questions or prompts right on their own screens. Pear Deck Slides help you engage every student in every seat and give formative assessments, no matter what grade or subject you teach. Pear Deck supports an interactive and community-focused classroom that helps students build confidence and comprehension.

This video explains how to add PearDeck to Google Slides

Pear Deck by Matt DiGioia

VID_20201007_131936.mp4
VID_20201007_131009.mp4

What is Pear Deck?

1 minute, 18 seconds long

PearDeck 101

57:49 minutes

Quick Guide for Students

Students don't need to create a Pear Deck account to join Sessions, but they may need a Google or Microsoft Office 365 account to join a Pear Deck Session if the teacher requires it in their Settings (see the next section).

  1. The teacher provides a Join Link or Join Code from their presentation.

  2. The student either:

    1. Clicks on the link OR

    2. Goes to joinpd.com and types in the 5-letter Join Code

  3. Now the student is in the Student View, where they can see the presentation and respond to the interactive questions.

Login Settings Guide for Teachers

As the teacher (presenter) you get to determine whether students join your Sessions with an email account or anonymously. Login settings are held for all future Sessions. If you turn OFF student login and let students join anonymously, you will not be able to retrieve their names or email addresses from any Sessions you present going forward. Turn ON student login anytime to start collecting email addresses and names again. Keep reading to learn more:

How to set Settings in Pear Deck

Let Students Join with an Email Address

When you require students to join with an email address, they must enter (or select) their email account. They do this right after entering the Join Code at joinpd.com or clicking on your Session Join Link. Their email addresses and names are automatically saved along with their responses. You can easily review students' work and see who left each response in the Dashboard, Takeaways™, or by exporting responses to a Google Sheet (Takeaways™ and spreadsheet exports are only available with Google). There are two places from which to activate login settings:

Pear Deck for Professional Development

How to present PD using PearDeck

For Secondary Teachers

How to Use Pear Deck for Self Paced Learning

5 minutes 10 seconds

Using Pear Deck for Distance Learning Using Google Meet

7 minutes 17 seconds

There are videos for how to do everything with PearDeck

Professional Development Opportunities

These are live webinars that you must register for. If you do not attend, they will send you the recording so you can view it at your own pace, but you will not be able to participate.

From webinars to how-to article to quick tip videos-lots of resources to get you started

Template packs, ready-to-teach activities, and blog posts.

Helpful Ideas on How to Use PearDeck

from Edutopia, November 18, 2020

PEAR DECK + GOOGLE SLIDES

Pear Deck and Google Slides make the best partnership. I always build my presentations in Google Slides. Then I open Pear Deck and sprinkle in the goodness. Pear Deck allows me to add interactive elements, connect with students, and understand how to better support them. Pear Deck can be used in so many ways—synchronously or asynchronously.

Check-ins: During daily check-ins, my class has the best conversations. Students share stories or experiences brought up in these opening slides and feel heard. They also develop strong connections. I am able to listen and know who is present for taking attendance later, all while building classroom culture.

Favorites: This or That (pick a side), Scribble Scrabble (drawing), Stress Check (draggable)

For a video of how to use these slides and to make your own, click here. To see my daily check-in slides and copy them, click here.

Breaking up reading into small chunks woven with visuals, audio, and questions: During class, I can read or students can read. After I’ve modeled reading and analysis questions, students are able to continue this process of independent or group work. Embedded audio on the slides of the text being read makes a huge difference. Students can use this to help them pace and model pronunciation.

Data collection: After the session is complete, I can export a spreadsheet of all the student responses. It shows me their answers and time spent on slides. It saves time and gives me a good idea about which students may need to review the material.

Integration of other tools: Another very useful feature is the ability to integrate a variety of other tools. If you use Flipgrid or Edpuzzle or any other website, you can add that directly into the Pear Deck, and students don’t have to go to different locations for the lesson.

Slide templates and lesson design: Don't reinvent the wheel. Keep slides fresh and interesting to increase engagement. SlidesMania provides free slide templates. Combining a unique template with Pear Deck questions allows the presentation to be interesting, connected, and current.

Using Pear Deck has provided a structure that my students know and recognize while providing freedom for moving from teacher led to student paced and large group to small. It also makes embedding other links, resources, and content a snap. Predesigned slides and questions support designing a lesson. There are all types of questions and activities already loaded into Pear Deck, and you can alter them as needed. The free version of Pear Deck is amazing and will do just about anything you'd need, with the exception of data exportation and drawing.