Nearpod: the bridge to ubiquitous language learning.

Mobile technologies have the potential to redefine what you do in the classroom in a positive and productive way --- Hockly

As what Hockly said, mobile apps have gradually rose in the field of education since they made breakthroughs in traditional teaching pattern. They break the limits of time and space. Today i will introduce a mobile app which can help teachers control students' learning content and process. That is: Nearpod.

picture source: Google image

What is Nearpod?

Nearpod is a content delivery system which can help teachers design acticities for students and push out content to student's devices.

How to create an activity? 

➽ First step: Sign up or log in and choose "create your own lesson" to start.

picture source: screenshot of Nearpod

➽ Second step: Add slide to make a Nearpod class.

picture source: screenshot of Nearpod

The easiest way to create a Nearpod class is to upload a PPT file. Slides will work as the content of activity in the form of graphic. You have three different possible sources to choose from as a slide, including content, web content and activity.

picture source: screenshot of Nearpod

➽ Third step: Choose specific activities for your class. Each resource include several kinds of features. For example, you can add slide by "add content" button, whose operation is similay as creating a PPT, easy and convenient. You can find the introduction of each activity in the video below.

(video comes from: Youtube)

➽ Forth step: After adding slides, you need to give your lesson a title and classify its grade and subject.

picture source: screenshot of Nearpod

➽ Until now, you've finished your own Nearpod Presentation. Here is the link of my own slides.

https://share.nearpod.com/gQxMoPprYV




➽ Fifth step: Now, you can push out your lesson to students' devices

Some possible ideas about how to use Nearpod in class:

As teachers, we can use many features in Nearpod to make full use of it.

• Use "quiz" in "add activity" to test students' understanding of some knowledge point.
• Use "fill in the blank" feature to test students' language ability, especially their master of vocabulary.
• We can create activities for students in advance and give them code of slides in class. We can ask them to finish some tasks in groups under the guidance of Nearpod. During this process, the collaborative learning can be realized and students' team spirits will be enhanced.

Pros and Cons

Pros

💗 Provide diversified tools for teachers to choose.
💗 Promote students' collaborative laearning
💗 break the limits of time and space in language learning

Cons

💢 You can not add all the slides at the same time. Every time when you finish a slide, you need to come back to the "add slide" interface and begin again. It is a little bit of time-consuming.

💢 You need to pay for some of the features.

💡 Give a go to this new technology and you will be surprised!

Reference
Hockly, N. (2012). Technology for the language teacher: Mobile learning. Retrieved               from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org.