​Our students learn in a variety of ways. Adding audio can be a great way to make your Pear Deck more powerful and engaging. Audio can be recorded live with Pear Deck’s tools or can be uploaded from a previous recorded file. To add audio, go to the Pear Deck sidebar and choose add audio from below the question types, as seen here.

Once you click on the ‘Add Audio to Slides’ button, you will be prompted to record or upload a file. You can read the text instructions, add additional clarifying instructions, or provide audio content (think SHORT personal podcast).

After you have recorded the audio, click on the add audio button. Students will know audio has been added to the slide when they see this icon. (To delete the audio, delete the button.)

Pear Deck has an additional feature that packs a powerful punch. With Pear Deck Premium, instructors enable the Immersive Reader integration. Immersive Reader provides students supports to “increase fluency for English language learners or readers of other languages, helps build confidence for emerging readers learning to read at higher levels, offers text decoding solutions for students with learning differences such as dyslexia or visual impairments, and provides translation of words or the entire text.”

You can enable Immersive Reader by toggling it on in the settings of your Pear Deck account, as seen below.

Once you have toggled it on, your students will be able to access Immersive Reader’s tools by tapping on the Immersive Reader icon found in the bottom right corner of the screen. To experience Immsersive Reader from the student perspective, check out this very short video below. (Learn more about other tools that have an Immersive Reader integration here.

Building in these supports provides a more inclusive experience for all of our students. Learning styles and needs can be diverse, but with these additional features, Pear Deck can be more engaging and accessible than ever before.  ​Make sure to check back on December 10th to learn about how to use student takeaways!

We'd love to hear how you are using Pear Deck. Please share with us in the comments!

~Mindy, Amber, and Beth

✅ Use the Teacher Dashboard to check in with the students before class. See all of their work in real-time. You could also use the feedback option to get information back to them before they even walk into the classroom. Imagine knowing this information about your students before they even walk in the door. Know who has or hasn’t completed the work. You could use this information to help reteach smaller groups of students or help to provide them with support that your students need. 

Also, consider some other ways to use Student-Paced Pear Decks:

• Remote Learning Lessons
• Center work in a Blended Learning Classroom

Additional Resources
DLGWAEA's Pear Deck One-Pager
DLGWAEA's Pear Deck Handbook
Edtech Take Out: Episode 81: Perfect Pear Deck Presentations


Connect with Us
In what ways have you used these different facilitation modes?
Leave us a comment, we’d love to hear how you are using Pear Deck.

​~Amber, Mindy, & Beth

This December we bring you Premium Pear Deck! Make sure to follow along with us on Tuesdays and Thursdays to learn more about your Premium Pear Deck Account as a GWAEA Educator! Let's get started!

​Google Slides just got better.
​
Pear Deck Premium was recently purchased for all of our Iowa educators as an excellent add-on for Google Slides for teaching in both synchronous and asynchronous learning environments. It allows the teacher to create and add interactive elements to a Google Slides presentation to engage students, gauge social emotional well-being, and gain data and feedback about student learning. Additionally, Pear Deck allows students to respond during an instructor-paced or student-paced mode, providing a variety of learning opportunities for any learning environment.

To get started with Pear Deck there are a few things you need to do. First of all, log into Pear Deck by using your school domain Google account to authenticate. Once you are logged in, your profile picture should be wearing a crown (see below) to signify you have a Premium account.

Next, start a Google Slides Presentation and click on ‘Add-ons’. Then, select ‘Get Add-ons’ and search for, select, and install Pear Deck. Now Pear Deck will be accessible in each Google Slides presentation you initiate.

Lastly, you may want to install the Pear Deck Power Up Chrome Extension. It helps run videos and gifs more smoothly in Pear Deck. After installing it, you will see it in your Google Slides toolbar. 

Now you are ready to explore Pear Deck! By clicking on the Pear Deck icon in your Google Slides toolbar, you will instantly open up a side panel to help you begin building. At the top of the panel, you will find a template library full of lesson builders, learning development, and content area slides ready to be selected and added to your Slides.

Feeling creative? You can build your own interactive slides from scratch by choosing a question type to add to the Slide and building from there. Additionally, you can add audio files to your Slides for a multimedia approach to your questions (more to come about that in a later post).

A few things to consider during the building phase of your lesson:

1. Add a social emotional check in from the template library at the start of each lesson.
2. Decide on whether the Pear Deck will be shared as an instructor-paced lesson (synchronous) or student-paced lesson (asynchronous). This might help form the types of Pear Deck templates/questions you choose. (Watch for a future blog post about why and when you might use these different paces.) 
3. Add content you would like students to engage with onto Slides between the added Pear Deck Slides, especially for student-paced lessons. Pear Deck Slides should be used as a processing, reflecting, connecting or formative assessment tool. 
4. Once your build is complete, it will be time to share the lesson with your students. In the side panel, you will find the green ‘Start Lesson’ button. Once you click this, it will give you two different options to deliver the lesson to your students. Choose instructor-paced or student-paced.

If you have chosen instructor-paced mode, students can go to joinpd.com and enter the code that is generated at this time. Or click on ‘Give Students a Link’ below the big pear and send the link through a Zoom/Meet chat or in your learning management system, like Google Classroom.

Now you are ready to play! We suggest pairing your Pear Deck with a colleague to try it out before using it with students. Let us know what questions you have! Check back on Thursday to learn when to use instructor-paced and student-paced sessions!

DLGWAEA's Pear Deck One-Pager
DLGWAEA's Pear Deck Handbook
Edtech Take Out: Episode 81: Perfect Pear Deck Presentations

We'd love to hear how you are using Pear Deck! Let us know in the comments below!

​~Mindy, Amber, and Beth

Building and maintaining a collaborative and creative community has been on our minds lately. The struggles of keeping strong relationships with our students and our students with one another is challenging from a distance. We've gathered some ideas that we wanted to share!

We've seen so many great ideas to provide shared experiences for our students via Zoom/Google Meet. If it is pet parades, show and tell, costume dress-up days, or scavenger hunts, teachers are doing everything they can to foster the relationships between classmates. Building in these fun, community-building ideas might be the way to do it! Jennifer Gonzalez shares some other ideas here.

Using Remove.bg gives the effect of green screen without all the extra tools! Create a class photo or have students create their own. This simple, free tool will stoke those creative fires! Check out Amber's quick tutorial below and another example of how she used it with selfies from the team!

Creating a digital flip book with Google Slides is easy! Using the duplicate slide tool makes this idea a breeze! Create a Google Slides presentation so everyone can edit and then watch the magic unfold. Use this will small groups or as a whole class (with some guidelines, of course) and create something that represents your class! Check out Mindy's tutorial below! 

Bonus tip: Check out TallTweets (use Tall Tweets Classic in the middle of the page)! It will create a .gif file of your flipbook that you can share anywhere!

Share with us how you are maintaining connections with your students! We want to hear about how you are fostering creativity in your classroom community! Tag us on social media with @DLGWAEA and, as always....

#HaveFunMaking

​~Mindy and Amber

Code.org introduced Computer Science for Good in 2019 to show students that computer science can be a powerful tool for positive change, but that it’s equally important to wield this tool responsibly

The events of this year have further shown this to be true, illuminating both the great promises and perils of technology. We rely on technology to keep us connected, but we’ve also seen how biased algorithms can divide us on the basis of race or gender. We rely on our technology to keep us informed, but we’ve also seen how easy it is to spread misinformation. We rely on our technology to stay productive, but we’ve left behind those who don’t have access to the internet.

In a year full of unexpected events, one thing is certain: it is more important than ever for students to learn computer science and technologies like artificial intelligence to help build the society we envision. (Read full article here.)

​Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries during Computer Science Education Week December 7 - 13, 2020. Help us celebrate by hosting an hour of code this year! We’ve put together resources to help teachers, coaches, and administrators from PreK to high school host events in their classrooms and buildings. Visit our team’s Hour of Code resource page for everything you need to build a brighter tomorrow!

Step 1: Register
ALL PreK-12 GWAEA Educators: Don't forget to REGISTER with us at bit.ly/GWAEAHoC20 and at the Hour of Code website. We'll send you stickers and posters when you register.

4th Grade Teachers: This year, we are collaborating with NewBoCo & the IT Sector board to ensure that every 4th grade classroom in GWAEA can host an Hour of Code event with an Industry Partner! Industry partners will briefly share about their jobs in Information Technology and then assist 4th grade teachers with hosting an Hour of Code with your students. You can host your Hour of Code face to face or virtually, depending on your needs. 4th grade teachers can sign up here to request an industry partner.

Step 2: Plan Your Event
Need help planning an Hour of Code? The Digital Learning Team has an Hour of Code Event Planning Template and an example you can use to get started.

Code.org has wonderful resources for you at https://hourofcode.com/us/how-to as well as their own planning guide.

Step 3: Select Activities from our Resources
This year we have created resource collections to help you quickly and easily host an hour or code no matter the current instruction model in your district.

Grab & Go resources you can use immediately:

• CodeBytes! - Live 20 minute lessons at 10a & 3:30p hosted daily December 7 - 11
• Take a Code Break! - 12 recorded episodes with inspirational guests & activities for all kids

Variety of resources to meet your unique classroom model & needs:

• Activities for Social Distanced Classrooms
• Activities for Hybrid Classrooms
• Activities for Virtual Classrooms

Resources to use CS for Change:

• Activities for #CSforGood & #CSforSocialJustice

Check out our Hour of Code resources from 2018 & 2019 that include our favorite online and unplugged activities at the Grant Wood AEA Digital Learning Team's website. You'll find resources organized by grade bands and by content areas.

Do you have Sphero? Dash? Hummingbird Bit? Ozobot? Micro:bit? Littlebits? LEGO Mindstorms?

Check out these Hour of Code activities designed specifically for your robots and physical computing kits: https://hourofcode.com/us/learn/robotics

Step 4: Share Your Event on Social Media
Use the hashtags #CSforGood, #CSforGWAEA, #CSforIA, #CSEdWeek, and #HourOfCode on social media to spread the word before your event and to celebrate afterword!

Let us know how you're planning to celebrate CS Ed Week this year in the comments. You can connect with us on Twitter with your plan @DLGWAEA. We can't wait to see how you and your students build a better tomorrow!

​- Corey Rogers
Digital Learning Consultant