Pear Deck

“Pear Deck Assessment, Multimedia,”Arlington Independent School District,

https://www.aisd.net/district/departments/academic-services/teaching-and-learning/technology-integration-teaching-and-learning/technology-integration. Accessed 17 May 2024.

Today, I will be talking about a platform that enhanced my lessons as a remote learning teacher and continues to benefit classrooms nationwide; this interface is known as Pear Deck. Pear Deck contains a variety of learning tools such as the traditional slideshow presenter, assessment resources, practice games, and tutoring services. However, I will specifically be focusing on the traditional Pear Deck slideshow tool and its many useful features.

Pear Deck is a service that is available through a personal or school district subscription; it is used in conjunction with a Google or Microsoft 365 account. In this post, I will focus on linking or creating a live slideshow presentation using Google Slides.

Linking a presentation

To link a Google Slides presentation, one would open his/her slideshow, go to the "Extensions" tab on his/her toolbar, scroll to "Pear Deck for Google Slides Add-on," and either add the Pear Deck Add-on or open an existing Pear Deck Add-on. From there, one can access the Pear Deck menu on the right sidebar and start a lesson or explore the various features Pear Deck offers. Screenshots are pasted below.

Personal Image: Extensions Tab and Pear Add-on feature

Personal Image: Pear Deck sidebar with various options

As one can see from the above images, Pear Deck is easy to add to an existing Google Slides presentation. Once one opens the Add-on, he/she is able to start a lesson or peruse the many resources that Pear Deck offers. Such materials include a district library that allows one to explore materials or publish them, a template library with premade content, question formats, which allow teachers to make question slides interactive, audio feature add-ons and much more; there is even a one-minute embedded video that briefly covers how Pear Deck works.

What makes Pear Deck unique is that it offers the option to hold asynchronous lessons as well as synchronous or "live" lessons. For an asynchronous lessons, a teacher chooses to start a lesson and selects "Student Paced Activity." From there, the teacher can create his/her lesson normally and then generate a "join link" or code for the students to access the lesson. Students then create lessons at their own pace. See image below.

Personal Image: "Student Paced Activity" option in Pear Deck

To conduct an Instructor Paced or "live" activity, a teacher would select "Instructor Paced Activity." From there, she would generate a website and code and join link and students would join the session using either option. See the picture below.

"How Students Join a Pear Session," Pear Deck Knowledge

Base, https://help.peardeck.com/en/how-students-join-a-pear-deck-session.

Accessed 18 May 2024.

The best highlight of Pear Deck is that it is multidisciplinary and usable with all grade levels. There are activities for all core subjects, including "extension subjects" as such as social/emotional learning and many presentation and question formats to choose from. To learn more about how to incorporate Pear Deck with young learners, visit the blog titled, "Pear Deck Templates for Littles."

Once a student joins a session, he/she might be asked to do a "temperature check" while teacher waits for the remaining students to join. A screen that a student might see follows:

Creekmore, Michael E., LPS, CPCS. “Helping Students Navigate the Holiday Blues,” Go

Guardian Learning, 14, Dec. 2021,

https://www.goguardian.com/blog/helping-students-navigate-the-holiday-blues.

Accessed 17 May 2024.

As one can see, a teacher has the option to skip this screen. This may be a good idea if a lesson needs to be conducted swiftly; however, it is never a bad idea to start a lesson by doing an emotional wellness check-in.

Once a teacher has begun a lesson, the students will see the "student view" of what the teacher presents whereas the teacher will have access to the "teacher view." (which is pretty much a Google Slide with the option to be interactive). An example of a slide that asks a student to respond to a question is featured below. The featured slide is in "student view."

Roshan, Stacey. “Tips for Presenting & Writing on Your Google Slides in Teaching an Online Class Using Pear

Deck,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=sJNb0_J8bpA.

Accessed 18 May 2024.

Featured below this sections are some highlights that I found for doing wellness and progress check-ins as well as assessing skills across the disciplines. Credit for each photo is listed below the image.

"Temperature Check" Tools To Be Used Throughout a Lesson