Using Nearpod Interactive Videos and Virtual Field Trips

Learning Objectives

Overview of Interactive Video Feature and Virtual Field Trips on Nearpod
Getting started with already created videos and virtual field trips
Creating your own Interactive Videos and sharing with students
Creating your own virtual field trips and sharing with students

Interactive Videos

Nearpod just released this feature last month that allow teachers to add questions throughout a teacher created video, YouTube video or any other videos that you can share with students based on copy right laws. While playing a video a teacher can add either multiple choice questions and/or open-ended short answer questions similar to what you can do with EdPuzzle.

TIPS FOR USING VIDEO

Be selective: A clip can have a big impact, so you’ll want to pick the most dynamic and telling parts of the film, news segment, or documentary to show students. Be first clear on your purpose—that will help you determine what to show and how to frame it for students.

Provide a Mission: How can we make sure students actively watch? Provide a mission before playing the video. For example, “As you watch, I want you to pay attention to....” Setting a goal for what students are about to watch will keep them accountable and attentive.

Pause to ponder (and write): Give students time to reflect by pausing the clip. Avoid having students do a task like writing notes or answering questions while they watch. This is especially difficult for ELLs. (For all of us, frankly. Try it.) Watch a few minutes and then pause the video to ask students to discuss what they just saw, write down reflections, or answer a question you provide. Pausing every few minutes allows students time to process what they’re viewing, which is especially valuable if it’s an information-packed video, or if you teach an early elementary grade.

Article: "Using Video Content to Amplify Learning"

Virtual Field Trips

Nearpod VR allows teachers send students on virtual field trips from the comfort of their own home! You can create your own field trips to integrate into your lessons or use and adapt already created lessons from the Nearpod library.

THE BENEFITS OF VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS

"In today's cyberage, the Internet can extend the educational value of field trips to levels previously unimaginable. Virtual field trips—field trips taken online—can take a student to locations too far away to travel to or too expensive to visit. Virtual field trips can take a student back in time, into outer space, or into the microscopic world.

A virtual field trip, if done correctly and in an educationally sound fashion, can provide many of the identical cognitive and affective gains that an actual real-life field trip can provide. (See Buettner, 1996, and Goldsworthy, 1997, for accounts of how students incorporated the Internet into their classroom field trip experiences.) The trick is to give the activity the same care and credibility as one would give to a real-life curricular excursion. Simply going to an interesting Web site would not constitute a curricular field trip in and of itself, just as an off-campus excursion to an amusement park would have limited curricular value (although there have been teachers who have attempted to justify a trip to an amusement park as a study of the gravitational forces exerted on the human body through the experience of a roller coaster ride).

If a virtual field trip is conducted in the same meticulous fashion as a real-life field trip, students should be able to acquire the same cognitive and affective gains that previous research has found. When this is possible, an entirely new world of experiences will be opened to all students regardless of the school field trip budget, as they can all experience firsthand the potential of the Internet as a valid curricular device."

Article "Why Use Virtual Field Trips"

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