Our Favorite Things #1!

Maria Von Trapp had it right! Singing (or in this case, singing praises of) our favorite thing does make things seem a little less scary!

One thing that we found that makes Distance Learner more fun and engaging is PearDeck!! PearDeck is an add on for Google slides that turns them interactive. Add multiple choice questions, text responses, the ability for your students to draw on slides, and the ability to click and drag icons or tokens around the screen. Each students interacts with their own screen, and you, as the instructor, can choose if you want to display students' work to the class (without the students' name). You can see in real time what each student is doing on their PearDeck screen. Best of all, at the end of the session, PearDeck saves all student work and you can create individualized "Take Aways", which are PDF files of the presentation and students' responses. A student missed class or you need asynchronous activities? You can set PearDeck to 'student-paced' and even add audio.

PearDeck was definitely one of my go-to's last spring!