Assessment with Peardeck

Teachers in Math and Science are using PearDeck as a tool to present, engage and assess student work. The new SEI template allows for communications with students.  The website addresses the  importance of these personal skills is getting more attention of late, and the numbers on school violence, depression, anxiety, and drug abuse indicate our urgency is warranted.

Helping students gain coping skills, resilience, emotional awareness, and empathy takes regular practice and reinforcement. The good news is, we can practice each day by incorporating questions that promote self-awareness into our regular lessons.

In the Pear Deck Slide Library, you can already find many templates that help students check in with themselves or consider another’s point of view. Today, we are releasing a new set of templates focused specifically on Social Emotional Learning. Here are some examples:

Stress Check
In this template, students are asked to check in with themselves and consider their current stress level. This not only alerts the teacher to students who may be unable to focus, but it also helps students learn to assess their anxiety levels. As students become more aware of their emotional state, they can utilize coping strategies to help them navigate stressful times safely.

It's always rewarding to guide teachers when using a variety of methods to reach students.

Google Slides with audio - Pear Deck + Google Slides = #PerfectPear

Google Slides will be adding a feature to insert audio this month.  This will be great update.  I have used a workaround in the past, adding audio to youtube and the upload but this will make things a little easier.  Here is the post from Google, however it has not shown up in our school domain, yet. I checked our school domain and slides today to see if the feature was available while creating a slidedeck and it's not here yet!

I have done some research on twitter and it's important to keep in mind, although you can insert audio you must host it to another location.  There are a few programs to checkout and make sure they are compatible with our school filter. I have used https://online-voice-recorder.com and I should be able to add from google drive. We will be able to embed MP3 and WAV audio files from Drive into Slides.
I'm also curious to see this working with the new present with Close Caption CC feature in slides.

Here are some post from twitter on ways to use audio and slides.

• Richard Bryne tips
  https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2019/04/google-slides-now-has-native-support.html
• Shakeup Learning
  https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/25-ways-to-use-audio-in-google-slides-projects/
• “Podcasting with Google Slides” (link: https://link.medium.com/YCoRzGxlFV)  

When recording audio in Google Tour Creator Eric Curts post he recommended TwistedWave - https://twistedwave.com/online and a few other programs. More here https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2019/04/audio-recording-tools.html?m=1

The more #googleslides is update the more I realize it might be a staple tool to getting more staff onboard using technology.  A few teachers have started using Peardeck for Google Slides https://www.peardeck.com/googleslides and can easily check for understanding using a variety of questions.  Pear Deck + Google Slides = #PerfectPear 

I had great success introducing teachers to Interactive Notebook (INB) with Google Slides this year using templates from SlidesCanival  to help student organize their project and work. Here is a great post to learn more about designing INB's.

I hope to have the new insert audio feature available when I return from school vacation next week so I can share with teachers!  This will be a great way to keep teachers and students engaged this spring while working on projects.