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Generate Instant Pear Decks

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  I’ll keep this short as the video explains most of you. Any new educational technology can be complicated to dig into from scratch as you attempt to align it to learning outcomes.  Well, a new feature that Pear Deck has introduced has taken a giant leap forward to help educators do just that.  Before we jump into the new features, if you are unfamiliar with Pear Deck and why my students and I consider it the #1 EdTech tool that helps their learning, check out the video in the previous blog post.   But if you are more concerned with why you should even dive into Pear Deck or learn about this new AI generation of Pear Deck sessions to a learning target, check out the video below. Like I said, I’m keeping it short so you have time to watch the video. If you have questions, please contact me at mohammam@elmbrookschools.org or the Pear Deck Learning team at support@deck.peardeck.com . Also, check out the amazing Stacey Roshan's video on this update. 
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Student Presentations in 360°

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As we are wrapping up our personal learning projects, we were able to include a new option for presentation.  That is Thinglink VR.  This is the first time I've ever had my students work with Thinklink in the classroom and the VR aspect made it even better.

 A handful of students choose this option and a couple completed products are linked below. Note, they are designed to be viewed with VR Googles such as Google Cardboard. So, if you try to view it in non-stereoscopic mode, the hotspots can't be viewed in their entirety. 

 To view the images in all of their glory, you'll need a smartphone and a set of googles. Even if you don't have the googles you can follow these steps to view in stereoscopic display.  You just won't get the desired experience.












It was fairly simple to create. Students used Google Drawings to create the background image for the scene.  They then used Google Slides to create each of the individual slides to be each hotspot. As this was our first go around, we didn't worry about adding videos. I'll save that for the next time.  

 The only tricky part was scaling the Drawing and Slides so they worked in the stereoscopic image. The background was scaled to 5376 x 2688 pixels in Google Drawings to give the maximum panoramic effect. The Hotspot Slides were scaled to 720 x 720 pixels. In stereoscopic mode, they need to be square to show all the info. The only downside is they won't be entirely displayed in non-stereoscopic mode.

Once students had a plan and all the pieces, the assembly is very straightforward. The background image was uploaded. Then, each slide was downloaded as an image and uploaded as a hotspot image.

 Thinglink has a vast support center that can be found here.

I look forward to having students use this virtual space to design creative presentation spaces. I think Prezi was a great step towards rethinking presentations as an experiences.  I think Thinglink VR will be the next step in this evolution.  We just need to let students loose to design in these spaces.


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