Nearpod Blog

Engage your students with unique classroom experiences on any device :) Learn more at www.nearpod.com

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For Teachers by Teachers: The Nearpod Authors Program

Interested in becoming a Nearpod Author? Meet some of our Authors and find out more about the joining the program.

High quality, standards-based instructional materials play a critical role in teaching and learning. Nearpod Authors help get these materials into the hands of educators and students by creating, sharing, and selling their original Nearpod lessons and resources in our online Content Store.

Nearpod Authors are: creative and skillful K-12 educators with experience developing educational content, and designing and teaching with Nearpod presentations.

Nearpod Authors benefit by: making extra income for their published content, extending the impact of their teaching to other classrooms, receiving feedback from other teachers, and honing their craft.

Meet some of our authors: 

Cathy Yenca is a Middle School Mathematics teacher, former Math Coach, and Apple Distinguished Educator with Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Education and 15 years of teaching experience. Yenca believes that effective technology integration and using real-time formative assessments and feedback is a key part of student success in her classroom. Yenca says that “being a Nearpod Author empowers me to design and share lessons infused with my personality and teaching style, [and] know that the engagement that happens with students in my own classroom can happen for students globally.” Check out Yenca’s Nearpod content here and read more about how she’s using Nearpod in the classroom at her blog.

Jennifer Nichols is an Elementary School Teacher with 7 years of K-6 grade teaching experience. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Education and is currently pursuing her Master’s Degree. She uses a multimodal approach to learning by creating lessons that allow students to experience information in a variety of ways. "The best part about being a Nearpod Author is knowing that the effort I put into creating meaningful and relevant lessons will benefit students outside of my own classroom,” says Nichols. “It's amazing to be part of such a diverse and widespread community of educators and learners!" Check out Nichol’s Nearpod content here.

Paul Thebert teaches High School Social Studies. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in History, a Master’s Degree in Teaching, and 12 years of experience in the middle and high school classrooms. Thebert uses inquiry-based instruction to emphasize higher order thinking skills, and believes that “learning happens best in a fun environment where the material is relevant to students.” He says that “for me the best part of being in the Nearpod Author program is the feeling of validation of my methods, and feeling like I'm in the vanguard of education technology." Find his lessons on the Nearpod Content Store.

Reach new students with your Nearpod lessons, build your portfolio, and join our passionate and talented Nearpod Authors by submitting your application to the program today!

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Released: Case Study on Nearpod in San Francisco's Middle Schools

We've been working with San Francisco Unified School District to design and implement interactive Common Core Math lessons that change the way students learn. This new case study written by CEO Guido Kovalskys and Blogger Pamela Levine shares how the initiative began, teacher and school district responses to Nearpod, and what's ahead.

Download the Case Study here.

In 2014, Nearpod partnered with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and the Salesforce.com Foundation to maximize the impact of the district’s technology investments and collaborate with math content specialists to create and share over 100 Common Core aligned math lessons for middle school students.

The case study, called Bridging Curriculum and Technology: How San Francisco Unified School District and Nearpod are Changing the Way Students Learn Math with the Support of the Salesforce.com Foundation, shares how a carefully planned and implemented digital learning initiative can powerfully impact teaching and learning.

What happens when teachers combine tablets, Nearpod, and aligned content? SFUSD middle school teachers experienced and identified several benefits, including the abilities to:

Tailor the learning experience to meet individual student needs

Deliver instruction that is aligned with content standards directly to students

Provide engaging and interactive experiences

Vary the delivery method of instruction

Diagnose student learning needs

DOWNLOAD THE CASE STUDY HERE!

Want to know more about Nearpod? Contact us!

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Student-Driven Instruction in Harvard's Laboratory Setting

Guest Blogger Pamela Levine sat down with Education Science Programs and Curriculum Specialist at Harvard Medical School, Robert Simpson to learn more about Harvard Medical School’s Advanced Placement (AP) Biology Hinton Scholars Program. 

Harvard Medical School’s Advanced Placement (AP) Biology Hinton Scholars Program is an after-school enrichment program serving 85 high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors from Boston Public Schools. The program combines tutoring, mentorship, and biology laboratory experiences to increase students’ understanding of AP Biology concepts and expose them to careers in the sciences. For the past two years, the Hinton Scholars Program has been using student responses and work in Nearpod to inform instruction in a laboratory setting.

Q: How did you get started with Nearpod?

SIMPSON: Nearpod was on my radar from an ISTE conference a few years ago. I started asking the question, “how many high school students in Boston Public Schools have mobile devices?” It turns out that a majority of them do. (For this program year, 95% own a smartphone & 45% own a tablet) Nearpod is definitely solving a problem that I see, where the public schools are so overwhelmed with what they need to do to get students through testing, that they’re not thinking about how to use these mobile devices students are bringing to school for teaching and learning. We are saying yes to mobile devices for teaching and learning.

Q: How is Nearpod used in the AP Biology Hinton Scholars Program?

SIMPSON: The challenge for us is that we don’t control the students’ curricular experiences through the whole school day--they’re coming in after school. A lot of the time, graduate student and postdoc volunteers don’t know what the students have reviewed in the past couple weeks, so there’s a big question: “do they know this or not?” You can be in a room with students and say, “so what do you want to know?” but it’s a lot more powerful to say “turn on Nearpod, I’ve got a few questions for you that align to today’s topic in the lab.”

We have a probeware system and it uses a concentration measurement. The assumption is that everyone has read the materials and knows the term, ‘concentration.’ But if students don’t actually know what it means, then when they get in the lab they’re at a real disadvantage. So we’ll simply ask in Nearpod before they get in the lab, “can you define this term?” Sometimes the students have read about it, but they don’t really know it. So we use Nearpod to reinforce what they really should know.

We also have a program where any teacher in Boston Public Schools can sign up and bring their class for one lab session. For those students, we really don’t know what their background is. Before they get into the lab, we need to know some basics about their motivation, their familiarity with the overall framework of AP biology and with that particular lab topic. That helps us inform the instruction.

We use Nearpod embedded in both the tutoring and the lab experiences, and students are using their own devices to access Nearpod on Harvard Medical School Wifi. When students come in, we want them to be on task. Launching Nearpod is their cue to get on task. Nearpod is also a way of exposing students to technologies that they are most likely to see going forward. In addition to AP Biology, we are also trying to prepare them for college and for majoring in health careers and STEM fields.

We are big fans of professor of physics, Eric Mazur. Back in the ‘90s, he was trying to figure out why he was having trouble with getting students to communicate their understanding (as opposed to simply regurgitating information) and developed a collaborative teaching method called Peer Instruction. That’s the theoretical foundation for why we do some of these things. When students pair up, they discuss the questions and content--they go back and forth--and that’s exactly what we want to have happen.

Q: How do you work with the Harvard medical and graduate student tutors to coordinate this approach?

SIMPSON: Last year, I gave a simulated classroom experience where I demonstrated the Nearpod technology, taught the pedagogy, addressed what we want to try out and why. A lot of the tutors gravitated towards it, primarily because this was a way of getting some insight into where students are. Some of my tutors are now “powerusers.”

I create basic skeletons of Nearpod lessons that cover just the basics of what we want to accomplish. I then push that out to my powerusers, and they take it, adapt it, and share with each other. Some of my tutors have other teaching responsibilities at Harvard. This has opened their eyes to potentially using this tool in their other teaching ventures.

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Take a walk through World History!

Awesome new social studies lessons in store now! 

Make sure to check out these great new Social Studies lessons by our Nearpod author Jodee Lund! Jodee is a social studies teacher based in Minnesota and has created some awesome lessons for grades 7-12. 

Take your students back in time to some of the most significant events of the 20th century with lessons on the World Wars, the Cold War and the Vietnam War. 

Want to know more about the US Presidents of the 1960′s? Then check out her lessons on LBJ, JFK and Nixon too!

You can find more awesome social studies lessons from all of our authors here. 

Find news on the latest Nearpods added to our Store on our blog!

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Students Creating for Students: The Nearpod Digital Publishing Summer Internship

Last summer, four high school students worked with teachers and Nearpod staff to design and publish middle school science lessons. Guest blogger Pamela Levine tells their story!

Lessons on circuits, constellations, genetic disorders, and Newton’s laws of motion have jumped out of the textbook and into the hands of students who produced Nearpod Presentations that teach these concepts to their peers. It’s part of our Digital Publishing Summer Internship, a program that partners high school students with teacher mentors and Nearpod staff to create science content for middle school classrooms. In the process, students learn about digital multimedia creation, design thinking, presentation skills, and instructional design.

Last summer, Lynwood High School and Summit Preparatory Charter High School students Emma, Oscar, Saksham, and Divyya planned and built their own middle school science lessons on Nearpod. “I had never heard of Nearpod before this internship,” says Divyya. “The first time I went on the website, I learned more about modern art, Shakespearean insults, Endothermic and Exothermic reactions than I had in the past seventeen years. The feeling of actually interacting with the material was exciting. And honestly, when was the last time someone called chemistry exciting?”

The goal of the program is to empower students to imagine and build the content they wish to see in their classrooms. To support them in this endeavor, students had to identify a teacher mentor that would provide feedback on lesson wording, pacing, and structure. Students also interacted with the Neapod team to hone their design skills. “As I began to work and revise my lessons, I realised that anything can be shown in a better way. Learning and teaching could could become art. And what better way to keep students interested than to present them with something visually beautiful and entertaining?” says Emma.

Composing their own lessons gave students a creative outlet to look forward to. “What I really enjoyed about being an intern at Nearpod was that I was able to gain experience designing,” says Oscar. “I was able to grow my design skills--something that will be very useful for me if I pursue a career as an architect.”

What really makes a student-created lesson powerful is capturing the essence of that student’s voice. When students explain concepts to their peers, they find relevant and exciting ways to relate that material. “I chose to do a lesson on Genetic Disorders. This subject is interesting to me because it is strange to see how simple Punnet Squares are. Simplicity can be so interesting in the realm of science--a complicated subject explained in one or two little functions,” says Emma. In addition to knowing the subject matter well themselves, the high school interns introduced that material with a compelling narrative structure.

At the end of the summer, students presented their lessons to an audience of peers, teachers, Nearpod employees, investors, and community members. These presentations are now published in the Nearpod Store, for use in classrooms and by independent learners around the world.

By empowering students to envision and create what they want to see in schools, we can further engage them in learning and turn the students themselves into the most powerful resource within our classroom. 

Make sure you check out For Students, By Students or check out our more content news here! 

Want to know more about Nearpod? Contact us!

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Introducing Nearpod and OZY!

We are thrilled to announce that Nearpod is partnering with OZY — one of the fastest-growing digital magazines in the country.

OZY launched just over a year ago with the mission to educate its readers to see more of the world and do more in their lives. Every morning, OZY catches you up on the latest headlines with the smartest news summary around and then vaults you ahead with compelling profiles of people, trends and places long before you see them anywhere else. Guido Kovalskys, Nearpod’s CEO, has been an OZY fan since its launch, and one of the first things he reads when he wakes up is the OZY news summary, aptly called the Presidential Daily Brief.

OZY founder Carlos Watson is the son and grandson of teachers, so education is in his blood. And in Nearpod, he's found a unique partner to bring OZY's cutting-edge content into schools. "Nearpod is changing how we teach our kids,” says Watson, “by bringing current events into the classroom."

Together, we will convert the news into carefully designed interactive Nearpod lesson plans, available for free in the Nearpod Store. Our shared goal is to help teachers enlighten and stimulate conversations with their students — it's all about creating teachable moments.

We will release two new lesson plans per week, curated by OZY editors, based on what is happening around the world and topics we believe will intrigue you and generate meaningful discussions with your students. Additionally, we will send you a weekly newsletter that contains other articles you might use to spark conversation in your classroom or in your teacher’s lounge.

We are so excited to bring these two organizations together and thank you for joining us in our mission to educate tomorrow’s leaders.

We hope you and your students enjoy every one of the OZY lesson plans, and we look forward to hearing your feedback!

Best,

Nearpod + OZY 

The New New Thing: The Internet of Things

Ferguson’s Drain on Justice Reform

Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, gets a big break

The critics who made Michael Jordan

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Neither snow nor rain nor sleet...can stop a great teacher

Resourceful educators set up virtual classrooms with Nearpod on snow days.

Snow blanketed much of the East Coast, Midwest, and Southern parts of the United States over the past few weeks. This led to snow days for teachers and students and often resulted in missed learning opportunities for an extended period of time. However, we’ve encountered some creative teachers who have taken advantage of Nearpod’s homework feature to make sure learning still happens, even when extreme weather strikes.

We spoke to one of these educators, Mrs. Lynn Woods (@MrsLMWoods), an 8th grade Language Arts and Literature teacher at St. Gregory The Great School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Last Tuesday, Mrs. Woods had planned a Nearpod grammar lesson about gerunds to deliver in class, but school was cancelled. This would kick off a streak of 4 straight snow days for Mrs. Woods and her students. Undeterred by the cancellation, she sent a message to her students containing a Nearpod homework link through Edmodo. They completed the lesson on their day off, and they did not lose valuable learning time. She even provided students with additional assistance by combining a live Nearpod session with a Google Hangout!

Here’s another teacher, @MrsCampbellNWES, who made sure her students were engaged despite the snow day:

@fultonitdept Thanks #fcsvanguard for the #nearpod account. I sent out some HW lessons this AM and they are logged in and learning. #snowday

— Ashley Campbell (@MrsCampbellNWES)

February 20, 2015

Our teachers continue to wow the entire Nearpod team by using the platform in ways we never imagined. It is truly impressive when a great teacher adapts powerful technology to meet the needs of their students. Did you engage your students as the snow piled up? We’d love to hear from you at @nearpod.

Photo credit to http://www.mlive.com/

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Happy Chinese New Year!

Learn all about the holiday traditions!

This great new Nearpod from Jennifer Nichols is all about the holiday traditions of Chinese New Year.

Grades 4-6 will learn all about the history and significance of this holiday and how it is celebrated. Find out all about the role of animals in the Chinese zodiac calendar, and how Chinese New Year is different to New Year in the United States!

What will the Year of the Goat bring you? :-)

Find more of Jennifer’s Nearpods about holidays here, as well as some awesome presentations on science, math and ELA!

Find news on the latest Nearpods added to our Store here!

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Design, create, capture, and recall with Nearpod’s new features!

Take a look at what’s behind the new Draw It and Student note-taking features.

Now that we’ve introduced you to our new features, let’s take a closer look at the education research and rationale behind them. This update helps teachers implement rich and effective learning activities by encouraging students to do even more with Nearpod, including:

Design and create with the improved Draw It

The design thinking, maker, and digital storytelling movements in education advocate educational approaches that foster creativity, and that put construction materials and technologies into the hands of students. When students become producers, rather than just consumers, of ideas and content, they call on higher-order thinking skills to ask questions, analyze audiences, organize and communicate ideas, express opinions, and create shareable content. In service of this, the Common Core State Standards call on educators to embed technology into instruction and engage students in using technology to produce and publish work.

In fact, today’s students are already making and sharing multimedia and authored work online in their day-to-day lives through social media and blogs. Teachers can nurture their motivation to design and create in service of educational objectives. The latest version of Nearpod helps with this, by giving students more powerful expressive tools through amped-up Draw It functions. Students can now add and manipulate multiple images and text boxes and dynamically organize their own layouts. Weaving text, images, and presentations together gives students more and different ways to communicate and express themselves. And as always, these work products can be shared in real-time to stimulate class and peer-to-peer discussions.

Asking to students to produce their own content is a valuable learning experience--we can’t wait to see what they create and share with Draw It v2!

Capture and recall with new Student notes

Studies of note-taking in education settings find both the acts of taking notes and later reviewing those notes are related to better academic achievement outcomes. Writing down notes helps students attend to and process material presented to them, and looking back at those notes helps students remember and recall that material when needed.

The new note-taking capabilities in Nearpod support both of these activities: students can record and capture what they are learning right alongside slides and activities, and can export a copy of the presentation with their notes for later review.

Teachers can also take steps to help students learn and practice to take notes more effectively and use notes to think about presentation content. A few of these research-supported strategies include: 1) organizing presentation materials within a clear framework or outline, 2) using signaling and transition statements to highlight big ideas or shifts during a presentation, and 3) providing direct instruction on note-taking through demonstration and feedback.

We are excited to introduce you to the new Nearpod! So, what’s next? Let us know what you think and what else you want to see from us.

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Making a difference with Nearpod

...all over the world!

We recently ran a competition on Twitter for our followers to tweet images of Nearpod in their classrooms. We had some great entries, but our absolute favorite was this set of photos from Kyle Langman, who teaches Economics and Accounting at Maritzburg College, Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. 

Here's a little about what he had to say about Nearpod! 

I was introduced to Nearpod by a friend, and since our school has started using iPads for learning, it has proved hugely beneficial. Our school has given the option to our top learners in 3rd form to join the iPad classes.

We currently have around 10 iPad classes, of which many of these learners are from previously disadvantaged backgrounds. Nearpod has allowed me to take control of the lesson, but still allow for learner creativity, and they contribute and create their own lessons. This interactive way of teaching keeps my students focussed and engaged with the content.

  Thanks so much for sending your story, Kyle! Keep rockin' Nearpod!! :-)

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Love is in the air!

Check out our awesome Valentine’s Day Nearpods!

We’ve got two great new Nearpods just in time for V-Day!

Check out Dianne Leoni’s fun new Nearpod on Valentine's Day Math for Grades 3-4 Math! Learn all about multiplication and division using word problems with a romantic spin. This Nearpod also includes some additional resources so you can keep spreading the love!

Or learn about the history with this awesome new Social Studies Nearpod from Jennifer Nichols, an Introduction to Valentine's Day! Grades 4-6 will learn all about how this holiday is celebrated in the present, as well as the past.

Find more of Jennifer’s Nearpods about holidays here, as well as some awesome presentations on science, math and ELA!

You can also check out Dianne’s great math resources for Grades 1-5 in our store!

Find news on the latest Nearpods added to our Store on our blog!

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Let's get to work!

Learn all about simple machines!

Our star author Rick Meyer’s new lessons on Simple Machines are perfect for Grades 2-6! This series of eight science lessons looks at how work is measured and the different tools that we use to make work easier. Focusing on levers, screws, pulleys, wedges, inclined planes, wheel and axles, and compound machines, your students will be excited to put these tools to the test!

Go to our Store here to check out Rick’s previous Science lessons for K-6, including this great bundle All About Animals, as well some awesome social studies lessons!

Or learn about more new content here!

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New Nearpod app: 8 new features that will help you reinvent your classroom

Feedback is a gift and our loving community definitely knows we love to receive it :) So we’ve listened to educators’ ideas and suggestions and voilà! A new version of Nearpod, full of surprises, is ready to download.

Here are the top new features we have added recently:

1. New Draw it: One of our most popular features, the Draw it, gets a major redesign: Students can now use more colors, a highlighter, add multiple images (and resize them!), add text, and more.

2. Student Notes: One of the most requested features is now live! Your students can now take notes for each slide of your Nearpod, both during Live and Homework sessions! NOTE: This is a premium feature, currently available for School Edition users only. Check this out.

3. Fill in the Blanks: This classic "drag & drop" activity is now part of Nearpod. Share it with your students and allow them to have fun while learning. It's super easy to do!

4. Student scrubber: When in self-paced mode, students can navigate the presentation and jump to any slide in an instant by dragging the Student scrubber. 

5. Download Nearpods as PDFs: Want to save your Nearpod lessons to go over them when offline or print them? It’ll only take you a few seconds! Find the option at the Nearpod "More" menu.

6. Copy/Paste: If you want to use the same slide or interactive feature within a Nearpod or even in a different one, you now have the option to select it and copy/paste it.

7. Math Symbols: We have added a new functionality that gives students the possibility to add Math symbols when answering polls, quizzes, or open ended questions.

8. Matching Pairs (BETA): In this classic memory game, students are prompted to find a pair of matching pictures or texts. It can be used to enhance students’ visual memory or just as an icebreaker to relax students before or after a lesson. (Note: This game is still in BETA and we would love to hear your feedback). 

Ready to enjoy? Update your Nearpod app now and get ready to boost your Nearpod lessons!

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Maximize your networking and collaborative learning at FETC 2015

Want to make this an unforgettable experience? Make sure you add these sessions to your agenda to ensure you don't miss anything!

January 20th / 8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m  

Authentic Assessment Using Free Digital Tools: "Are you looking for innovative ways for students to demonstrate their learning? Do you want to incorporate HOTS (Higher-Order Thinking-Skills) into your assessments? Spend the day immersed in making the products yourself. Go home with the experience, the tools, and the excitement to share with students."

Presenter:  Kati Searcy, Teacher, Mountain Park Elementary School.

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January 20th / 4:00 - 7:00 p.m

Adventures in Elementary Technology!: "As Elementary school educators with a passion for technology and innovative, authentic teaching, we explore many different technology initiatives and programs. Some work really well and some, do not. Through a hands-on and interactive approach, we will guide participants through a series of initiatives that have worked well for us and show participants how these could be implemented into their elementary classrooms."

Presenters:  Miriam Stoller, Grade 4 Teacher, St. John's Ravenscourt School. Mary Bertram, Teacher, St. John's Ravenscourt School.

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January 23rd / 10:00 - 11:00 a.m

15 Amazing Web Tools to Use in Your Classroom: "Amazing. Incredible. Phenomenal. However you describe them, some tools really can transform the things we are doing in our classrooms. In this session, Jerry Swiatek will showcase 15 of those amazing, incredible, phenomenal web tools that can make a difference for your students."

Presenter:  Jerry Swiatek, District Technology Specialist, Citrus County School District.

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January 23rd / 10:15 - 11:00 a.m

A Guide to Digital and Assistive Technology: "In this session, we present unique applications for personal computers and mobile technology that are free or low cost, easy to use, and readily available to help every educator meet the diverse needs of the students in their classrooms. Tools are organized based on the practical needs of students and teachers and include how to present information in new ways, empower original student expression, and increase student engagement."

Presenters:  Adam Steiner, Technology Integration Specialist, Holliston Public Schools. Elizabeth Stringer Keefe, Assistant Professor, Lesley University.

Hope to see you there! Find more info on this and other edtech events here :)

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FETC & TCEA 2015: Seven days of inspiring ideas!

Want to reach creative colleagues and share tips, experiences, and resources? Join us at several huge edtech events that are now around the corner.

FETC 2015

From January 20th through January 23rd, the Nearpod Team will be at FETC 2015, ready to share amazing new stuff at booth #1056. We look forward to meeting you! Here’s a floor plan so that you can easily find us.

Are you interested in scheduling a meeting with the Team? Please be our guest!

Make sure you don't miss any of these incredible sessions!

TCEA 2015

Shortly after FETC, from February 2nd trough February 6th, the Nearpod Team will be at TCEA 2015. We are looking for passionate teachers who want to share innovative ideas with others while they change the way in which their students learn. Are you one of them? Stop by booth #2385 and say hello! 

Are you interested in scheduling a meeting with the Team? Please be our guest!

ISTE 2015

From June 28th through July 1st, we'll be in Philadelphia, presenting at ISTE. More info coming soon!

Follow all the activity via Twitter - @nearpod - and Facebook!

See you there :)

Are you new to our community? Meet Nearpod!

Don’t have an account? Get started ;)

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Be happy, healthy and wise!

Start 2015 the right way!

Introducing brand new Health Nearpods for Grades 6-8! Our new Nearpod Author, Anthony Slusher, has come up with these five new Nearpods on First Aid, Emergencies, A Balanced Diet, Your Teeth and Cigarettes and Smoking. 

Check them all out here and give your students the information they need to look after themselves and others! More Health Nearpods are on their way! 

Don't forget to check back later for more new Health Nearpods, or check out all the other amazing lessons we have here!  

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Meet Our New Blogger, Pamela Levine

Meet Pamela Levine, a Stanford Education Technology Specialist, Nearpod User, and new Guest Blogger!

Hi, I’m Pamela Levine. I’m a passionate educator dedicated to helping teachers develop their education technology skills and vision. The path that lead me here, however, began in a classroom with very little technology at all: as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Tanzania, I spent evenings teaching English to elementary-aged students by candlelight. The classes were not part of my students’ required coursework, nevertheless, they showed up every day with a voracious appetite to learn and practice. In Tanzania, a good quality English education is a dream for most students in remote villages, where Swahili is the primary spoken language and the language of instruction at the elementary level. A strong grasp on the English language can contribute to one’s success in secondary school and make accessible a broader range of post-secondary education and employment prospects. My students’ energy and enthusiasm for learning made me excited about education as a powerful force for opportunity and change.

I decided to apply to graduate school to study Education. This entailed my taking weekly, 4-hour bus rides on a dirt road to the closest internet cafe, in order to complete and submit my applications. Many bus rides later, I was accepted to the Stanford Graduate School of Education, where I attended after completing my two-year Peace Corps service in 2008. I received an M.A. in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies and promptly moved to Washington D.C. to work at a large nonprofit human development organization in their U.S. Education division. Invaluable as it was to learn about and contribute to education research and policy analysis, I missed the classroom, and returned to school to obtain my teaching certificate in Elementary Education.

In the years that followed, I taught 2nd grade in the D.C. Public Schools, and 3rd grade in a D.C. Public Charter School. At first, in many ways things felt even more complicated than in the rural African classrooms where I’d been years earlier. Most of my students were from disadvantaged backgrounds, lived amongst community violence or in difficult home situations, and were behind or below grade-level on various measures of educational achievement. I needed to make learning matter to them, while also helping them meet or exceed federal and state assessment targets.

Between the handful of classroom computers and my personal iPad, I tried to capitalize on a variety of websites and applications to help me more effectively reach my students. Simply having the internet and computing devices available, though, was not enough; technology needed to be implemented purposefully and in ways driven by educational goals. (That thoughtful technology integration can increase student engagement and produce significant gains in achievement is affirmed in a recent study, Using Technology to Support At-Risk Students’ Learning, by the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education). With instructional planning and use of appropriate tools for my curriculum and grade level, I was able to present information in understandable and dynamic ways, share and provide recognition for student work, support students with special needs, expand the power of assessments and data, and make learning rich and relevant. Soon, I began helping other teachers and administrators at my school do the same.

In 2012, I returned to the Stanford Graduate School of Education to apply my experience to teaching other educators about effective, innovative, and aligned use of technology in K-12 and higher education classrooms as an Education Technology Specialist. Since then, I’ve visited and taught with technology in schools around the world, and have come to even more heartily agree with Alliance for Excellent Education president Bob Wise’s sentiment that “replacing teachers with technology is not a successful formula. Instead, strong gains in achievement occur by pairing technology with classroom teachers who provide real-time support and encouragement.”

Nearpod shares this point of view. “Rather than replace the teacher, Nearpod was developed to turn mobile devices into teaching assistants,” says CEO Guido Kovalkys. I couldn't be more pleased to collaborate with an education technology company with not only a great product, but also with this founding principle.

I’m also inspired by the creativity and passion of Nearpod’s users. After reading stories and receiving fellow teachers’ endorsements, last year, I began using Nearpod in my “Digital Classroom: Technologies and Practices for Educators” course at Stanford and in some of the teacher professional development seminars I lead. My favorite Nearpod feature at the moment is the ‘Draw it’ function, which I use to facilitate student creation and design thinking activities. For me, the most powerful learning often happens in the discussions and “teachable moments” that can be catalyzed by student-generated work.

I’m looking forward to finding and sharing more about how Nearpod is being used and having an impact. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have a strong Nearpod story that you’d like to produce a blog post or case study around.

It’s great to meet you!

Pamela Levine

@PossiblyPamela