At the start of the school year, a few teachers from our school attended and Google Apps for Education conference.  The conference lasted for 2 days and was a buffet of interactive educational tools.

We were a mixed-bag of technology knowledge.  There were a few of us that were pretty tech-savy, while others struggled to find the way to turn on their iPad.  No matter what level a person was at, there was something at this conference for them to learn.  

My favorite "find" of the conference was an application that was called Pear Deck. 

Pear Deck Educational Application

While the initial demonstration was a little overwhelming, it is actually a very user-friendly program for the teacher in the classroom.  In short, Pear Deck is a way to create interactive slide shows that can involve the students throughout your lecture.  Pear Deck lets you take that slide show and add questions, charts, or responses that the students can answer and participate with during your lesson. Here is a short description of how it works, taken directly from the Pear Deck website. 

What is Pear Deck? 

Pear Deck give teachers the ability to engage and assess every student in every row no matter what grade or subject.  Using Pear Deck will help you create an interactive and community-focused classroom that builds confidence and comprehension.

How Does it Work?

Pear Deck is very similar to a slide show, like PowerPoint or Google Slides. But instead of just static, informational slides, you can make interactive slides that let every student participate in your questions or prompts, right from their own devices. When you present your Deck, you will get a unique code for students to use to join your presentation from their phone or computer.

1. Make your slides
2. Start Presenting
3. Every Student Participates

Pear Deck is also a Google Drive App. This means that it's fully integrated with the Google ecosystem, making a perfect choice for Google Schools.  Here are some of the great benefits of our Google integration:

• Students don't have to make a Pear Deck account or remember a new password to join your presentation. They just use their school Google account.
• When you create a new Pear Deck file, it's automatically stored in a "Pear Deck" folder in your Google Drive. You can organize it, share it, and collaborate on it just like any other Google Doc.
• You can hook up Google Classroom to Pear Deck so that you can directly invite your Classroom Rosters to your Pear Deck presentations
• After class, you can publish Student Takeaways so that every student in the class gets a personalized Google Doc with all the slides and their answers. Because it's a Google Doc, you can leave comments for the students, or share it with their parents or tutors. 

You should check it out! The few times that I have integrated it into lessons, the students have loved it and it brought a whole new level of learning to the classroom!

References

http://help.peardeck.com/article/3-pear-deck-overview