Nearpod - A User-friendly Platform for Blended Learning

It wasn't until I reached for the light switch in my room that I realised I had spent the entire day navigating through a maze of online teaching tools in search of the perfect one to realise my blended learning idea. At the end of the day, I can confidently say that Nearpod can be by far the most user-friendly platform, adequately meeting the needs of my blended learning class with a free account.

Let's embark on a journey to explore why Nearpod has become my preferred platform and how it integrates into my teaching approach for blended learning.

Simplified User Experience

One of the standout features of Nearpod is its intuitive interface. Unlike some similar platforms that leave users baffled about where to start even after browsing through the entire homepage, Nearpod guides us to the right place to start with just a glance. When I accessed my "workplace" in Nearpod with a few clicks, I guess my confidence in this platform made my facial expression look like that of the kid seated in the front row (see the screenshot below).

Nearpod - Homepage

Consider the tedious processes of filling out institution information, verifying educational emails, and waiting for verification codes that we often encounter. Nearpod has none of these. Instead, it greets teacher users with simplicity and trust, as if a friendly host saying, "You're a teacher? Great, come in." After spending a day experimenting with various similar tools, it became evident that Nearpod's straightforward approach sets it apart from the rest.

Facilitating Blended Learning

My vision for an ideal blended learning tool includes its ability to accommodate both in-class and out-of-class activities, foster online and face-to-face interactions, and cater to various learning modes – whether it's through lectures, independent learning or group works.

To test how well Nearpod works, I designed an extensive reading lesson (check my lesson here) around Roald Dahl's short story "The Landlady", with a specific focus on foregrounding technique. The lesson is roughly divided into four procedures: the out-of-class preview, in-class activities, homework, and feedback.

The preview part contains a video with built-in questions and a survey on the difficulty level students experience when reading an excerpt from the short story. Nearpod supports my design with this lovely interactive video tool, enabling me to activate students' schemata and stimulate their interest in further exploring the story in-class. The open question tool is also highly flexible, serving various purposes from pre-learning surveys to ice-breaking games and post-learning feedback. Students can access these tasks on their own devices anywhere with a code or a link, and teachers can decide whether they want to require student responses and prevent skipping. It truly understands students' needs, isn't it?

Nearpod - a video with built-in questions example from my lesson

Nearpod - an open-ended questionnaire example from my lesson

During class, students can read the story together using the PDF viewer tool and listen to the teacher introduce the topic as they would usually do with Microsoft slides. However, to customise the learning experience, students can engage in independent learning through mini research via the web content tool. This is when teachers can guide students to some preplanned extensional resources while students can practice their searching and evaluating skills within a range of choices. The collaborative board allows students to share their findings, preparing the ground for further speaking practice. Like other tools mentioned, the collaborative board is versatile and can be adopted for different purposes such as sharing ideas, posting questions or storing multimedia work. 

Tvtropes - foreshadowing

Nearpod - a collaborative board example from my lesson

As the lesson comes to an end, quizzes can be assigned to check students' understanding of the key concepts. Though there aren't too many types of activities, they are quite handy for students to receive immediate feedback on the spot in a lighthearted way. Strike while the iron is hot.

Nearpod - quizzes tools collection

Nearpod - an example of quiz from my lesson

To put a closure to the lesson, the teacher can use the poll and open-ended question tools to check students' general feelings about the lesson and "listen" to their suggestions for future classes. Easy peasy! Gone are the days when collecting paper-based surveys was a laborious task for teachers.

In summary, Nearpod offers a comprehensive suite of features that empower me to conduct a range of activities seamlessly. However, Nearpod doesn't stop here. As it automatically tracks each student's progress on every task, it enables teachers to spend their time effectively on evaluating the teaching and learning rather than wasting time counting and chasing after students to ensure they've completed their homework (although this is still unavoidable for other types of homework like exercise books).

Nearpod - report page

Some Limitations (for the Free Account)

With its excellent performance being said, there are a few moments that I wish the platform can be adjusted slightly to better meet my needs.

Starting with the latest mentioned function, the report is specified and clearly laid out, but teachers can't directly reply to students responses through this platform. This seems to me like the final piece of jigsaw puzzle missing from the complete picture.

Additionally, the collaborative board is too simplified to the extent that only minimal interaction can be done (the free account only allows 'like', but the paid version also allows comments), and the font and position of post are not adjustable. However, with the physical presence of the teacher and students, the discussion can extend from the internet to the physical classroom, and fewer distractions can be beneficial, especially for younger students.

Back to the earliest preview session, since the purpose of the survey is to ensure the text provided is suitable to most students' proficiency levels, an open-ended questionnaire might not be the best way to ask for the number of words students don't recognise. However, it is the best solution I can think of with the free account. Instead of using a survey tool that is more suitable only for checking individual results, a slider that allows students to drag and stop at the number they want might turn out to be a better solution because it can track individual response while also being easy to turn into a bar chart to check where does the majority of students fall on the spectrum.

See You Next Time!

With all this being said, from guiding previews and facilitating in-class interactions to assigning homework and tracking student progress, Nearpod serves as a competent one-stop solution for my blended learning classroom needs. It doesn't offer many fancy tools or templates to choose from, nor is it equipped with AI functions like many online platforms do nowadays, but it keeps reminding me to think about the best question to ask, and the most possible solution to take when they are not directly presented to me. It requires me to think like an educator but at the same time saves me much time on logistic work, graphic design work, or shifting between platforms. It allows me to contemplate at the first place instead of generating me an unqualified solution that require much time to adjust. The advertised "efficiency" that comes with AI power can sometimes be true, but often meticulous design takes time and effort.