New Resource during Research Season

'Tis the Season to Do Research, Fa La La La La....

And so it begins! As always, the changing of the leaves, the smell of pumpkin spice, and the myriad of all things pumpkin (and all that early Christmas stuff thrown in) everywhere heralds the time of the great research migration of classes to the media center.

With old topics (and new!) coming to the media center, I have learned of a new resource as I help teach and guide students on their start of the different projects. Many students have never used databases or e-books for research (i.e.: freshmen) while others have forgotten their Boolean search techniques so I tailor each lesson for the particular project's requirements. With topics on prejudice during the 1920s-40s, genocide, world religions and so on, this gives a huge juxtaposition of presentations.

Thanks to one of our science teachers, I learned about a resource that has helped make these lessons interactive: Pear Deck. After creating my google presentation, I upload it into my peardeck.com account. Then I can add question slides. These can be short answer, yes/no, and multiple choice answers. With the questions imbedded in the lesson, students use their phones, the iPads, or chromebooks to follow along and participate in the lesson. What I really like is that the answers are saved with their names (they log in with their school email) so I have data from each presentation. Now I know who "gets" the Boolean search part of the lesson, especially important with freshmen who have never searched a database before. Everyone puts in a practice search on their topic and it appears on my iPad in real time. This is incredibly beneficial because I can give instant feedback.

Pear deck has a free and a paid account. My principal paid for teachers to have accounts, and we are so very fortunate he did. Thank you to Mr. Jones for sharing this resource, and thank you to Mr. Daniels for purchasing it for us! It has been wonderful to use!