Today we gave PearDeck a try. It was awesome….. so far here are the best features:
- When I asked students to: “Place a moveable dot on the point where the function gives a value of 40”. On their own screen they see just their dot, but on the projector screen they see everyone’s. — on this particular example the class was split on the two points where the volume is 40. This was awesome because we could all see that there are two solutions. I then asked “Now place a dot where the function gives a value greater than 40” Again they could see in live time everyone’s responses……but it was great for explaining that there are infinite solutions to that question (Our lesson goals were to solve inequalities using graphs)!!!
- It worked on all devices!!! It worked on their phones, iPads, tablets and computers…..this was great. I didn’t need to book a lab or for everyone to have an iPad with a specific app! It’s web/cloud based so they just need to access a webpage.
- Works with Google Drive….load files right from the Drive….it also saves to the drive. When kids join the class they are asked to sign into their google drive account. So on the dashboard I can see their name!
Some Feedback
Noticed that I had to switch between projector view and dashboard view so that we could see the entire class’s responses to the drawing questions. It would have been nice to see their drawings overlapped just like when you place a dot!
[update: there is a check box that allows the overlay of drawings!!]
More to come. Totally worth the subscription fee though!!
