Pear Deck, the Pair for your PPT

Hello, there!

Have you ever asked yourself as a teacher "My PPT is boring, can I not make it better?" or "Is there an easy way to make a PPT?". Well, if those are your questions, I have the right answer for you. Meet...

Pear Deck

Yes, it's a pair of pear (see what I did there!). No, you don't need the fruit to use this tool (or do you?).

"Okay, enough with the pun, what is this website?"

Ehem... I digress

This one is not exactly a web-based tool like the previous ones. This one functions directly from your google slides. You still have to make an account in the website though. This tool can make your power point slides become interactive in an instant. That's pear-fect, right? (I'm sorry). You can access the web at https://www.peardeck.com/

"Alright, please tell me how to use it, without the puns, please."

I hear you. So, to start, you need to open your google slides first before using the Pear Deck. You don't need an already made slide, you just need to open a new one. When that's done, you can follow these steps.

1. Make your account

After opening the website, you will be presented with this happy pear and a google slide logo. If you want to be as happy as that pear, you press that sign up for FREE button on the top right part of the screen. 

2. Making your interactive PPT

Next, you will see this screen. If you want to directly make the power point slides, you can press the "create a lesson" button. You can also see some helpful videos about pear deck by pressing "learning pear deck".

3. Using Pear Deck 

After pressing the "create a lesson" button, you will be redirected to your google slide page. But, you don't need to do that every time. You can use this step by opening your google slides directly without accessing the Pear Deck main page first.

Here, you can simply follow the instruction provided by the Pair Deck. You click Add-on, then choose "Pear Deck for Google Slides Add-on".

4. Making the interactive PPT

After activating your Add-on, you will have Pear Deck menu on the right side of your screen. There, you can choose from a multitude of interactive activities to be embedded in your PPT. You can press the template library to choose some premade interactive templates.

5. Starting your lesson

 From the same menu, you can press the big green "Start Lesson" button to start your lesson.

Here, you can choose whether you want to present your PPT as a student-paced activity or instructor-paced activity. Either way, you will be redirected to a page with the sharing code. Your participants can access your PPT presentation by opening joinpd.com and entering the code from your page. Then, you can start your interactive presentation.

6. Ending your presentation and reviewing your students' answers

When you are presenting, you will get this screen. After you've done all the activities in your presentation, you can press the END button on the bottom right of the screen (Mine is "EXIT" because I've pressed "END"). After that, you can press "Open reflect and review" button.

"Now, I can sleep with ease"

Wait, you want to know about the pros and cons too. Don't just run away like that.

Let's start with the pros first.

1. You can choose from various templates.

2. It is very simple to use.

3. You can track student performance by using the "Open reflect and review".

4. Your students or participants don't have to register an account to play your activities.

5. You can easily access it directly in your google slides.

Of course, there are also some cons which you need to put into consideration.

1. It can be confusing for first time user.

2. Students can't compete with one another.

3. Can only be used in google slides.