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NearPod without iPads

Access to iPads in the morning section of my classes became an issue this semester, and I expected that to be a pretty big problem. I was kicking myself for investing so much time in preparing presentations last semester that I might not be able to use with my current students.

I tried to think creatively about this problem. One option was simply to ask students to BYOD (bring your own device). I’m trying that tomorrow morning. As a test, I tried running a NearPod, launching from my iPad, but asking a friend to participate from his MacBook Pro. Surprisingly, it worked great. In some ways the big screen of the laptop was a big plus. Probably a little cooler to look at 360 degree panoramas with the geo-synchronous feature of an iPad, but other than that, both are fine. I think view on an iPhone is not as good, but with the “Retina” display, it is still decent.

We tried this out, and it works great.

Lagging slide advance in Teacher Mode (a tip): Last week during my NearPod presentation at LMU Tech Day, I had a lot of lagging when I swiped to advance. It wasn’t a disaster, but it certainly didn’t show off NP at it’s best. Tonight, the same issue, so I switched over to my iPad mini from my old iPad 2. With the mini everything worked smoothly. I suspect the iPad2 screen was dirty, or that the screen coating is wearing out.

2014: 01/24
CATEGORY: Gadgets
iOS Devices
NearPod
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Students Love NearPod

During the final class meeting of Visual Thinking, Fall 2013, students were asked about their experience with NearPod during the class. The survey was conducted within the final NearPod presentation of the semester. This PDF of a NearPod Report from that session summarizes the responses:

F13 final class NP survey

2014: 01/14
CATEGORY: Experiments
Fresh ideas
iOS Devices
Learning styles
NearPod
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2nd semester with NearPod

In my second semester using the NearPod app in teaching Visual Thinking, I will make greater use of NearPod reports to assess my student’s learning. I also plan to experiment with both NearPod Homework (for homework assignments, and as a way for students who miss a class meeting to view the weekly NearPod presentation).

Also, there may be a problem with availability of iPads in the first section of my course, so I’m going to experiment with how well NearPod works when it’s running on the student’s own iPhone, or Android device, and to see how it performs when running through a laptop browser.

NearPod has an Android app, and it can run on a laptop

2014: 01/14
CATEGORY: Experiments
NearPod
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Developing a NearPod presentation

Here’s my workflow…

It took me about 4.5 hours to this for the second meeting of Visual Thinking. The themes this week are exploring initial ideas of what it means to be an artist, and the origin of the Light + Space art, the only art form that originated in Southern California.

a mind map of how I develop a NearPod presentation

2013: 09/05
CATEGORY: NearPod
Ways to engage
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Working on 2nd NPP…

So now I’m working on my next NearPod presentation for Fall ’13. It is a unique medium. I’ve decided to start by making a fresh Keynote presentation on Light and Space art. I am focusing on three artists in this field, attempting to construct my own version of history. I will use the Keynote, because it is an easier way to construct nice slides–making slides within NearPod seemed somewhat limiting. I am keeping written notes about where to include interactive features, along with a list of survey questions.

I got a list of NearPod iPad Friendly websites. My favorite is “360Cities.com,” a great way to virtually travel. I am going to show my students “The Weather Project” by Olafur Eliasson, and I plan to fly them to the Tate Modern via 360Cities. The really cool thing about 360 cities is that the iPad screen becomes a window on the world. As you move your body the spherical image swings in the new direction thanks to the iPads gyro. I’ll encourage my students to stand up while doing this, as it heightens the effect.

Standing on the Millenium Bridge London, looking toward St. Pauls thanks to 360cities.net

2013: 09/03
CATEGORY: NearPod
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How it feels…

I thought using NearPod would be a frantic multi-tasking experience, but instead it was relaxing, with no need for me to summarize–the student responses took care of that, and in a highly visual way.

Perfect medium for teaching a course in Visual Thinking

Visual Thinking / Art 350 students using the app during the first class meeting of Fall 2013.

2013: 08/31
CATEGORY: iOS Devices
NearPod
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First classes using NearPod

Yesterday was my first experience using NearPod. I did the usual activities for the first meeting (review syllabus, ask students to imagine what they would like to learn by the end of the course, and trying a process called a Seeing Drawing), but instead of my usual Keynote intro to Visual Thinking presentation, we grabbed iPads, and went through my first NPP (NearPod presentation).

It seemed like the students enjoyed the interactivity. I’ve really started to hate any passive activity in the classroom. Sometimes we watch a film if it provides essential information efficiently, but mostly I want students to be making stuff, talking to each other, exploring on their own.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

Students enjoyed the novelty of using iPads this way, and everyone likes responding to questions which ask them to express feelings / thoughts about the topic under discussion.
It was quiet. I didn’t need to speak to summarize student comments. I just hit the “share” button, and everyone could seeing the comments and sketches.
I adjusted what I had to say based on student feedback, and it was much more efficient to read through a list of student comments, than to go around the room checking in with each person. Even in a class of 14, that always drags.
We had a variety of activities, and in this first NearPod experience, students were surprised to suddenly be browsing the LACMA website, or have a video pop up in which Christo and Jeanne-Claude hugged after the completion of their Valley Curtain project.
The image quality was much better than that produced by my classroom activity.
I think it’s obvious that this level of activity is more engaging than the typical PowerPoint lecture.
Students loved seeing the instant summary of their responses in a pie chart.

THIS IS VISUAL THINKING! I don’t have to translate into words. We exchange images. We glance through a hugely varied set of responses. We sketch ideas and immediately share them.

2013: 08/31
CATEGORY: Fresh ideas
iOS Devices
NearPod
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Helpful suggestions

I met with Laurie Burruss, the teacher who first exposed me to NearPod, and I got some VERY helpful suggestions.

Frankly, I’d gotten somewhat off track. I was trying to grasp this new technology, and my first NPP had too many things going on. I was trying to introduce my course, play with the all the ‘toys’ (the NearPod interactive features), and access the effectiveness of this app. Laurie suggested I focus on one element, include five multi-sensory learning features, and then wrap it up with student reflection that would help to make the experience relevant to each student.

One principle for using NearPod effectively is to ask open ended questions. So I deleted the Yes/No questions, and asked for fill in the blank responses. This was my first attempt at using NearPod in class, and I felt I had something that was focused on one goal.

And here’s a link which clarifies NearPod, How it Works.

2013: 08/31
CATEGORY: Learning styles
NearPod
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a teacher's research and experiments with the 'cloud'