Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs. In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year. Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home. I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms that are
About a month ago, I was introduced to Pear Deck. It is an incredible tool for allowing students to engage in a presentation. There are many great things about Pear Deck. Students are able to follow along with presentations on their devices and respond directly to questions posed by their teacher on the device. The device does not have to be a laptop. It simply has to have access to a web browser. My student have used iOS and Android devices with ease.
In the spirit of the season, I'd like to highlight some things Peak Deck has given me.
It is simple to create a new deck once you have linked your Google account to Pear deck.
In addition, you can import a Google Slide Presentation into Pear Deck.
The teacher can then see where students have placed their marker. Responses can be displayed for the class and results are all displayed on the same image at the same time.
The session dashboard works as a remote control for the presentation. The teacher can change slides, lock responses and display response. It also displays individual student responses so the teacher can keep tabs on students as they work to know who needs assistance in real time.
In the spirit of the season, I'd like to highlight some things Peak Deck has given me.
On the 1st day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to create a new deck.
It is simple to create a new deck once you have linked your Google account to Pear deck.
In addition, you can import a Google Slide Presentation into Pear Deck.
On the 2nd day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to create a new slide.
When creating a slide, you have the option of making it a normal slide with no interaction, a Draggable slide, a drawing slide, a multiple choice response, a numerical response, or a slide which displays an external web site.
On the 3rd day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to add an image.
On any slide, the user can add an image. This image can be an upload, a image from Google Drive, or the user can search for an image to add using Google search. If you use Google search it nicely sites the the source of the image as well.
On the 4th day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to add a video from YouTube.
You can add a video from YouTube to a slide by URL or search.
On the 5th day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to use Draggable slides to measure student understanding.
A Draggable slide allows students to move a dot or other indicator to a location on an image slide.The teacher can then see where students have placed their marker. Responses can be displayed for the class and results are all displayed on the same image at the same time.
Creating the Slide
Student Responds
Displaying Class Responses
On the 6th day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to use drawing Slides to measure student understanding.
Traditional multiple choice and calculations can't always measure the understanding we want to see. That's why allowing students to draw freehand on a slide is a great tool. Student responses can be seen one at a time in this format.
Creating a slide
Students draw on a slide
On the 7th day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to print slides.
Although we are dealing with digital slideshows, the ability of printing of slides in advance is key to meet the needs or preferences of all students. Pear Deck allows you to print slides or save them as a PDF.
On the 8th day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to present slides via the session dashboard.
The session dashboard is a powerful tool. the teacher can have the presentation on the main projector while having the session dashboard open on a second device.
On the 9th day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to Class Session Log to review student responses after the presentation is done.
Pear deck creates a session log for each presentation so teachers can see how students responded to the questions asked.
On the 10th day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to access it using Google Drive.
Pear Decks can be stored in your Google Drive. It is a great place to organize your presentations. You can open them directly from Drive. Also, you can share them with others who use Pear Deck.
On the 11th day of Christmas Pear Deck gave to me, the ability to send students copies of a Pear Deck.
Since students use their Google accounts to join a pair deck session, Pear Deck is able to share out a copy of a slide deck with their responses to a folder it creates in their drive. This works great for teachers who are not going to make paper copies of the notes for every student.
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