Pear Deck is a fun way to add interactive questions into a Google Slide. I can imagine using it when trying to do some formative assessment along the way.
My two favorite parts?
- Picture Annotations: My favorite part is the ability to broadcast a pictures and then have each student draw on the picture. You can then see what every student drew. You could even take a picture of some text and have the students annotate the text on screen. (Underline the strong verbs in this paragraph).
- Saved Results: Whenever you have the students do one of these Pear Deck Interactive questions you get a copy of what every student did. You can then have, in a very short amount of time, a copy of every student’s work saved to Google Docs.
Those two functions are both in the premium version. You start with a free trial to test it out. At 150 per teacher is it worth it for elementary teachers? I am not sure I can say it is. I do not want my elementary friends focused on making their lectures more interactive, I want them to do less lectures.
If I was a middle / high school teacher who did a lot of lectures would it be worth it? If I used it with all of my classes once a week, that might work out to 50 cents a class. Worth it? probably.
In my head I compare it to other premium services. Padlet or Pear Deck? If I had to pick one, Padlet.
Is it worth playing with for the non-premium version of Pear Deck. Absolutely!
Next steps for me? Use it with a teacher PD.
Notes For Kevin 