Increase Engagement with Pear Deck

As Google Slides became most robust in its ability to compete with PowerPoint, the add-on Pear Deck sealed the deal for me.  I am convert!  All hail Pear Deck!

Pear Deck is an easy add-on to use on Google Slides that allows you to

1) have students follow along with the presentation on their own devices (it's web-based so it works on both smart phones, Chromebooks and laptops).

2) have students answer questions throughout the lesson.

In order to ask a question to the class, it is as easy an adding a new slide and typing your question.  Pear Deck allows you to ask multiple choice, text or number questions.  You can even use the add-on to send students to a website of your choice to research something during the lesson.  There are a couple of premium types of questions (draw and draggables) that require a paid membership.

Here is a great tutorial on how to set up a Pear Deck:

When I create the presentation, I think of what I would normally ask throughout that lesson and add those questions as Pear Deck slides.  I love that students are able to answer by drawing a picture.  This was incredible when we reviewed position-time and velocity-time graphs.  I could even see their responses in real time, and so can the rest of the class.  It was very effective to display the answers and discuss any inaccuracies we saw - all without identifying the student.

I asked my students (as a Pear Deck question, of course) whether they liked this presentation software.  It was an overwhelmingly positive response.  If you already use Google Slides, it will be very quick to add Pear Deck questions to your presentation.  If you are a PowerPoint convert, like me, there is an option to export your PowerPoint slides into Google Slides, but it's not 100% perfect if you have interactive pieces (like animations or transitions).

All in all, here is an innovative technology that will help increase student engagement and improve student learning.