Pear Deck for Google Slides

"With information being created and shared so quickly these days, educators must adapt, adjust, and be willing to learn new skills and vocabulary." 

- Kasey Bell, Author of Shake Up Learning

 Pear Deck

Think about your usual lecture format. The teacher stands in front of the board showing a presentation and students are taking notes and raising their  hands to participate in discussions. While this is a common format, how can you ensure everyone is engaged? How can the quiet students join in on their discussions? How can you make your presentation interactive for both the students and the teachers? How can you see who is confused and who is ready to move on to another portion of your lesson?

Pear Deck can answer all of these questions, and more. It makes your presentations interactive, engaging, and fun for the students. It is effective for in-person and virtual teaching.

What is Pear Deck?

Pear Deck is an add-on for Google Slides that adds in assessment pieces. Teachers create presentations with Google Slides and students log in to the presentation to answer questions and follow along with the presentation on their own device. You can insert multiple choice, free response, drag and drop, and drawing questions. The teacher has access to a teacher dashboard which shows students answers in real-time. This can also be displayed on the board with or without student names. 

Pear Deck also has a growing template gallery that can be accessed so you don't have to create all presentations from scratch. If you already have a presentation created in Google Slides, you can just add questions into your presentation wherever you need them. 

Pear Deck is free, but some of the features require a subscription. However, you do get a free 30-day trial when first signing up. There are also codes that can be used to extend your free trial if you decide you want to use it more often. Watch the following video for quick overview into Pear Deck.

How to Use Pear Deck:

First, be sure that you have installed the Pear Deck add-on. Go to the G-Suite marketplace and search for Pear Deck, then click install. You can also follow this link to take you to the add-on install directly.

Once you have installed it, open up the Google Slides presentation you would like to use the add-on with. At the top, look for the drop down menu that says add-ons. 

Click on the Pear Deck for Google Slides Add-On button when it appears in the menu, then click open Pear Deck add-on. This will open a side bar on the right hand side of your Google Slides. 

From here, you can explore the template gallery or you can add an interactive question using the links on the side bar. 

Template Gallery:

In the template gallery, you will find pre-made activities that can be inserted into your presentation. There are bell ringer activities, during lesson activities, end of lesson activities, and social emotional/critical thinking templates. You can also search templates by the grade level or subject. There are many great templates out there for you to use so I suggest searching through them when you have time. 

                                           

Types of Questions to Add:

In addition to the templates, you can add your own types of questions into your presentation. 

• Text: These questions allow students to type their answer in (short answer, paragraph, fill in the blank, etc.)
• Choice: These are multiple choice questions. Type in your question and add in the answer choices. Students will click on the answer choice when presented with the question and options.
• Number: Students will type in a number for their answer. They can't add in any other special characters or letters, so be careful on what type of answer you want for this question.
• Website: Using this feature, you can embed a website for students to explore prior to coming back to the presentation. For example, you could have students go to a website to view a certain chart and then return to the presentation to answer questions from it.
• Draw: This is a premium feature. Using this feature, students can use the mouse and slide like a piece of a paper and pencil. If your students are working out a math problem, they are able to show their work using this feature. Another example is you could also use this to have students graph a line.
• Draggable: This is also a premium feature. With this tool, students can drag objects on your slide. For example, you could have students drag a point onto a map based on a location you give. 

If you would like a more in depth view of the types of questions, click here. 

Launching your Presentation:

When you are ready to show your presentation in class, you can do it one of two ways. You can either choose start lesson at the top of the Pear Deck add on in Google slides: 

OR you can open up the Pear Deck website and choose present file from drive.

Once you present using the Pear Deck Add On, it will open up your presentation in a new tab. It will ask if you would like to use student-paced mode or Instructor-paced mode. The descriptions will help you decide which mode you prefer. If you are live in class, I recommend the Instructor-Paced mode, because students can't go to another slide until you move it, ensuring they are on the portion of the presentation you are discussing. You can always change the mode if you need to (even during the presentation).

Once the new tab launches, there will be a code for students to type in. The website will be joinpd.com. If they go to the Pear Deck website, there is a button they can click to take them to joinpd, but it will be easier if they type in that website. They'll type in the code on the screen and it will add them into the presentation. 

You can also give the students a link to join the presentation. If you choose that, it will be in the bottom right of your screen. 

Options with Pear Deck Premium:

With the premium version, you have access to the Teacher Dashboard. You can open this in a separate tab OR on a separate device while you are presenting to see students responses in real time. You can also review responses from previous sessions and publish student responses so that student receive a copy of their responses to review material. The premium version is better than the free version, in my opinion, solely because of the Teacher Dashboard. You can usually get codes to extend your 30-day free trial if you are wanting to use this consistently in your classroom.

Why Use Pear Deck?

Pear Deck is a fantastic resource to fully engage all students in your lesson. My students LOVED the days we did it. You should expect that they will play around on it the first time they use it, so I recommend doing a trial run where the students can practice the different types of questions and show them that you can see what they are doing using that teacher dashboard.

The real time feedback that you get from Pear Deck saves time from walking around to look at each and every student's work. It gives control to the students so that you can focus on ALL of the class, and not just one or two students at a time. It also helps to give even the shyest students a voice. I wouldn't hear from some students if I didn't use Pear Deck. Student engagement is so important to their learning and Pear Deck helps to keep students engaged.

Pear Deck is versatile enough to be used in multiple subjects with multiple topics over a variety of grade levels. Want a quick vocabulary review? What about incorporating a foreign language? Pear Deck can do all of these. They have even teamed up with Newsela to offer free, ready-to-teach activities. 

Kasey Bell said it best in her quote (see beginning of post).... educators must be willing to try new tools within their classroom. Pear Deck is one of my absolute FAVORITE tools that I highly recommend. Give it a shot and see how it goes!