Over the coming academic year Technology Enhanced Learning will be working with colleagues from across the academic schools to evaluate Nearpod, an interactive presentation tool new to the University of Sussex.

So, what is Nearpod?

Nearpod is a tool which allows you to create engaging presentations. You can make your presentations more interactive and enhance student engagement by adding various different  activities including open ended questions, polls, quizzes, ‘Draw it’ slides – a whiteboard feature for annotating images or gathering ideas during discussions, and Collaborate slides – a space for students to pool and share ideas, images and resources in real time. In addition to this you can include text, images, audio and video as well as embedded web pages and PDFs.

One of the most interesting features of Nearpod is that you can send your presentation straight to students’ own mobile devices. This means that during lectures or seminars, a tutor can control progress through the slides and students can interact via their mobile devices using an app or via a web browser. If required, students can add their own notes during the presentation. Presentations also can be controlled from a mobile device, enabling teaching staff to move around the room and interact with students while presenting. Alternatively, presentations can be set to ‘student-paced’ and worked through outside class time. This allows users to create  exciting, interactive lessons, and has potential for flipped and distance learning.

Building a Nearpod presentation

As well as using Nearpod to deliver learning content, teaching staff could use Nearpod to gather feedback on students’ engagement and progress, to view reports of student progress or to view feedback of students’ results during the presentation. For further examples of Nearpod in higher education, please see:

• Using Nearpod to enhance Social Care students engagement in lectures
• Embracing Hand Held Technology within Higher Education: ‘Nearpod’
• Interactive Teaching with NearPod
• Engage and Assess Students with the Nearpod App

How will the Nearpod pilot work?

The purpose of this pilot is to see how teaching staff at Sussex would want to use Nearpod, evaluate how useful Nearpod may be, generate different use cases, and make connections and share practice across the academic schools.

TEL have bought a number of licences for 2017/18 and have allocated a number of these to each School for individuals who want to try out the tool in their teaching. People involved in the pilot will receive training and ongoing support from a member of the Technology Enhanced Learning team, who will also be carrying out evaluation activities with staff and students.  

Join the pilot

We still have a few places left on the pilot scheme if you would like to join. If you are teaching at the University of Sussex and are interested in taking part in the pilot please complete this quick application form. We are keen to include as many people as possible and will be in touch with more information soon. If you have any queries please contact tel@sussex.ac.uk. When expressing an interest in the pilot please state which term(s) you would be using Nearpod so that we can maximise use of the licences.