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Peer Review

Pear Deck for Google Slides

Reviewed:

Oct 24, 2021 by Teacher Education
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Ratings

Overall Rating: 5.0 stars
Content Quality: 5.0 stars
Effectiveness: 5.0 stars
Ease of Use: 5.0 stars
Overview:

Pear Deck for Google Slides is the #1 Slides Add-on, making it effortless for educators to add interactive questions and formative assessments to their presentations. The Basic level is free and enables you to:

  • Design brilliant lessons with interactive questions, polls, quizzes, formative assessments.
  • Work seamlessly with powerful classroom tools from Google and Microsoft.
  • Control the pace of class and project student answers anonymously.
  • Enable students to join a session anonymously without email login.
  • Keep students in sync with Locks and Timers Ready-to-teach templates designed by educators.
  • Teach vocabulary with Flashcard Factory*
Type of Material:

Social Networking Tool, Drill & Practice

Recommended Uses:

Pear Deck can be used in the classroom, whether in-person or online, for drill and practice, or for formative assessment, to check understanding throughout a lecture.

Technical Requirements:

Utilizes Google slides (PowerPoint and Keynote materials can be uploaded for use)

Access to Google or Microsoft through an Internet connected computer and any browser. The ability to use an Add-in on the computer or administrators who are willing to incorporate the add-in.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

At the most basic level, Pear Deck allows teachers to add interactive questions and formative assessments to their slide presentations.

At the existential level, "Learning science research offers ever increasing evidence that learning is social, emotional, and academic.¹ ² It is clear that learning does not happen in a bubble and that to prepare our young people for healthy, successful lives we need learning environments to provide strong, welcoming cultures that develop good social-emotional habits and academic mindsets. Pear Deck is designed to support proven strategies in daily classroom instruction, making it easy for teachers to follow the best practices that reduce achievement gaps and improve outcomes for all students.

PEAR DECK LOGIC MODELThe Pear Deck Logic Model explains how administrators, teachers, and students use Pear Deck, what they do with it, and the outcomes they can expect to realize. Internally, this logic guides the development of our products, making the connection between key features and desired learning outcomes. For the administrators and teachers who use Pear Deck, the Logic Model helps explain why using Pear Deck results in more effective teaching, what the indicators of success will be, and what should be improved to increase efficacy moving forward." 

A PDF of the Pear Deck Logic Model is provided.

Target Student Population:

Grade School, Middle School, High School, Pre-K

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Familiarity with Google Slides would be helpful but not necessary to a user with basic computing skills who can follow and online tutorial.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:

Pear Deck can be used with any subject. There are templates available for users to begin to develop their own decks. 

Formative assessment tools such as PearDeck are widely accepted in education. The PearDeck creators have incorporated templates that use common models to check for understanding including questions for which the answer is Multiple Choice, Number, Text, Draggable, and Drawing. 

Concerns:

Content quality is high. Draggable and Drawing questions are only available in the paid version.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:

Formative assessment has been shown to be valuable as a way to checking for understanding. Incorporating PearDeck into a Google Slide presentation is an effective way to guide instruction. When students are logged into the PearDeck presentations, the teacher will be able to see how the class as a whole responsed to various questions and also how individual students performed.

Although there are many other ways to use formative assessment, and most do not involve technology, this method is efficient for teachers because they may already have the slide presentations and can just incorporate questions.

In addition to the interactive questions, PearDeck provides the opportunity for instructors to create vocabulary lists and turn them into Flashcards, or for students to create flashcards in the Flashcard Factory.

Concerns:

PearDeck, even as a free version is very effective as a teaching tool. Some tools such as Add audio to a slide, give individual feedback to a studen,t or sharing with other teachers are only available in the paid version.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:

PearDeck is very easy to navigate but teachers will appreciate the support provided including:

  • Explore Content
  • Help Videos
  • How-To Handbook
  • Teaching Blog
  • Be Internet Awesome
  • Training & Webinars
  • Knowledge Base

Pear Deck works on any device and in any browser, and seamlessly integrates with Google and Microsoft Apps for Education. All lessons are stored in in Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, free and without limit.

Other Issues and Comments:

Website states that Pear Deck compies with FERPA and COPPA. Pear Deck also states that materials integrate with several learning management systems.

Some activities only work with Google integration (not Microsoft) at this time.

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