Pear Deck

Website:  https://www.peardeck.com/

Description of Site:

Pear Deck is an ad-free tool that allows instructors to create interactive slideshow lessons that may include images, text, video, and more. Students join the live session and the instructor controls the activity on the participant's device. During an interactive lesson using Pear Deck, participants have the opportunity to respond to the instructor's questions. Pear Deck offers various types of interactions such as draggable, drawing, text or number, and multiple choice. Participant responses are real-time and anonymous in presentation mode. The instructor may view individual answers or toggle between participant's answers in presentation mode. Instructors may view specific individual responses on their mobile device.

Pear Deck is appropriate for school use. It works best in a 1-to-1 or BYOD setting. The Terms of Service states that schools should be in compliance with COPPA guidelines if students under the age of thirteen will be using this tool. Additionally, instructors must agree to use this site for educational purposes only. I could see Pear Deck used K-12. Primary teachers have posted that they have used Pear Deck in their classrooms. I think the biggest hurdle would be access to devices. I think it could easily be utilized in grades 4-12.  

Pear Deck has three pricing plans: Free, Premium, and Domain. The free plan allows for Google Apps integration including Google Drive file storage. The free plan is for one instructor with up to thirty concurrent session participants. The premium version includes some bells and whistles and it offers educator pricing for $99.99 per year. There is a thirty day trial of the full version available.

Educational Uses of Site:

Pear Deck would be a great tool used as a ticket out the door. Instructors may pose a few questions towards the end of a lesson to gauge how well students understood the concept. Almost any concept would be acceptable using Pear Deck. For instance, I could see Pear Deck used as a ticket out the door in math class. I could present my lesson on dividing decimals. The ticket out the door would require students to answer leveled questions that get progressively more difficult. This data would then drive future instruction.

Pear Deck could be used as a survey tool. For example, a teacher could present information about herself/himself and then question students about their interests. A pretest is another example of how Pear Deck could be used as a tool. Teachers could ask questions about an upcoming unit to determine students prior knowledge.

Pear Deck could be used as a warm-up. Teachers could pose an equation and students must create the question. The teacher then selects a student's question to display and participants must determine if the question can be correctly answered using the equation.

Review of Site:

I think Pear Deck is a terrific web 2.0 tool to use in the classroom. It captures students' interest and helps to engage them in interactive lessons. It is easy to use and the free version offers enough choices without having to pay for the premium versions. I see myself using Pear Deck when I am introducing new concepts and I would like to collect student responses anonymously. It would be used as an instructional tool without competition between students. They may truly show me what they know.