Let’s be honest, there have been times during the pandemic that teachers have faced an impossible mission. The mission of how to quickly explode pedagogical best practices and related tools while at the very same moment provide amazing instruction for students. Basically we had to learn ourselves while simultaneously helping our students learn. During this time of virtual instruction, teachers have been able to (in some cases forced to) expand our knowledge and understanding of several different learning platforms. These technologies have made our trip through the “new normal” a little easier. In this article, I would like to highlight some of the technology that I discovered (in some cases rediscovered) that I think every teacher should know about. Hopefully they will give you some new tools for your tool box. Your mission if you choose to accept it, is to take a gander of these brief overviews for each product. 

1. Nearpod

Nearpod is a platform that provides student engagement and teacher assessment at the same time. Teachers can either create their own nearpod or select a pre-made lesson from the nearpod library. Lessons can be presented in person and virtually, as homework or in class. Teachers can also choose student led lessons where students work individually at their own pace or or teacher led lessons where work is completed as the group progresses through the lesson together. Nearpod helps educators make learning fun by employing concepts like polls, questionnaires, 3D images, and more.

To learn more about nearpod click here:

2. Kahoot

Kahoot is an online-based gaming platform that is used to make learning fun! It has 400 – 500 million games on various topics with multiple images and videos to make it more exciting and engaging for the students. Teachers can choose to create their own quiz questions or use and edit the existing questions available. Quiz questions can be presented in the form of multiple choice, true false, puzzle, polls and much more.

To learn more about Kahoot, click here:

3. Pear Deck

Pear Deck is an amazing tool that allows teachers the ability to create an interactive presentation that can be used in face to face and virtual learning. The presentation is created very simply using Google Slides and inserting interactive slides from Pear Deck (which is an add-on for Google slides). After the presentation is assigned, Pear Deck allows teachers to see the deck live so they can see who is participating at that moment. Student responses appear on the teacher's screen in real time, even if working remotely. Pear Deck has free and paid versions.

To learn more about Pear Deck, simply click here:

4. Flipgrid

Flipgrid is a tool that facilitates online discussions. With this learning platform teachers ask questions and students respond in the form of a video. Flipgrid is very easy for students and teachers to use. Teachers simply create a FREE account, create a video and share it with the class. Students then respond using videos that could include student response,drawing, writing and more.

To learn more about Flipgrid please click here:

5. Bloomz

Bloomz is an amazing tool that is known for communication but is so much more!! This app has made my life so much easier and saved me so much time!

With Bloomz a teacher can easily communicate with parents either individually or to a group using the message option, or through a post or announcement that goes out to the whole class. Teachers can schedule conferences and ask for volunteers or items in the classroom. This tool also allows teachers to create and assign lessons within the app. Additionally, teachers can track behavior, create student portfolios and so much more.

To learn more about Bloomz, please click here: 

I hope that you have gained some tools that will help you along this journey. Please feel free to contact me with any questions related to the platforms that I have covered in this blog post. You can reach me at vbishop@hbpirates.org.