Application of Nearpod in a Student’s View (Week 9)

In the ICT course, Professor Tilly used the Nearpod website. I remember the last class where students were divided into groups and had to complete different tasks based on Nearpod's PowerPoint and return to the classroom. There were five of us in the group, and the tasks included taking a group photo in front of a grocery store and asking the staff about the number of employees working in the shop and the number of hours they worked per day and per week. In addition, a group photo was taken with one of the staff. The staff member we asked was kind enough to help us determine the number of employees and asked if we were doing social work. When he heard that we were completing classroom tasks, he recognized our behaviour and thought it was a good way to learn. We were supposed to be one of the first few groups to complete the task, which was a very novel experience.

After the lesson I explored the use of Nearpod on my own. Overall it can help teachers to create rich and interesting PPTs. The PPT materials include pictures, videos and other interactive games. The pages are simple and clean. The process of making PPT is not difficult.

In addition to the usual PPT functionality, the site also offers some new teaching tools, categorised as shown in the diagram below. There are tools for interactivity, quizzes and games, and discussion tools, which greatly facilitate the design of teaching and learning and help to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning.