make pear deck presentation

Give every student a reason to engage

Encourage engagement and active learning

Created by educators and tested in thousands of real-world classrooms, Pear Deck makes it easy for teachers to create active, collaborative learning environments.

Increase engagement

Elevate classroom engagement by empowering educators to create dynamic, inclusive, and collaborative learning experiences.

Encourage greater participation

Foster active participation and spark rich discussions by ensuring every student's voice is heard.

Provide real-time student feedback

Assess understanding on the spot, foster personalized feedback loops, and craft tailored learning experiences for every student.

Close learning gaps

Track students' real-time understanding to identify learning gaps and provide targeted and timely support to help the students affected.

Make faster, smarter decisions

Immediate insights into student comprehension leads to more confident, data-driven decision making.

Ready-to-teach lessons

The Content Orchard includes standards-aligned content, templates, and quick-start activities to assist teachers in crafting impactful lessons and creating meaningful learning experiences.

Our constantly expanding content library is populated by respected partners, teachers, and Pear Deck's own learning science team.

Seamless integrations with your favorite tools

We know teachers are a busy bunch, and learning to use new tools can be time-consuming. That’s why Pear Deck was designed to integrate with tools you already know and use. Whether your school is Google or Microsoft-based, Pear Deck will work in your classroom.

You help students. We help you.

Explore dynamic presentation features, quality content, and more.

• Schools & Districts

Accelerate learning with real-time feedback, collaborative classrooms, and more.

“When the students are participating through the interactive slides, they are taking ownership of their own learning.”

Real-time data for everyday instruction

Use Pear Deck to introduce new concepts interactively and Pear Practice to follow up with related Practice Sets, ensuring students reinforce their learning in an engaging way.

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Pear Deck Presentation templates

What do these templates have in common they’re all compatible with pear deck improve your presentations with a vibrant and interactive experience. with pear deck, you can embed questions directly into your slides, creating a two-way flow of information that increases student participation and fosters deeper learning.

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Social Skills for Elementary using Pear Deck

Download the "Social Skills for Elementary using Pear Deck" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and easily edit it to fit your own lesson plan! Designed specifically for elementary school education, this eye-catching design features engaging graphics and age-appropriate fonts; elements that capture the students' attention and make the learning...

Chalkboard Icebreaker using Pear Deck

Download the "Chalkboard Icebreaker using Pear Deck" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The education sector constantly demands dynamic and effective ways to present information. This template is created with that very purpose in mind. Offering the best resources, it allows educators or students to efficiently manage their presentations and...

Language Arts for Middle School: Storytelling and Narrative Writing using Pear Deck

Download the "Language Arts for Middle School: Storytelling and Narrative Writing using Pear Deck" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you’re looking for a way to motivate and engage students who are undergoing significant physical, social, and emotional development, then you can’t go wrong with an educational template designed...

Geometry Lesson for Elementary using Pear Deck

Download the "Geometry Lesson for Elementary using Pear Deck" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and easily edit it to fit your own lesson plan! Designed specifically for elementary school education, this eye-catching design features engaging graphics and age-appropriate fonts; elements that capture the students' attention and make the learning...

Isometric Style Math Lesson for Middle School using Pear Deck

Download the "Isometric Style Math Lesson for Middle School using Pear Deck" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. If you’re looking for a way to motivate and engage students who are undergoing significant physical, social, and emotional development, then you can’t go wrong with an educational template designed for Middle...

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How to Create a New Pear Deck Lesson

Information.

Pear Decks Slides presentations are all created in Google Slides or PowerPoint Online, so you can combine the editing power of Google Slides or PowerPoint Online with the interactive engagement power of Pear Deck!

Set up your Pear Deck account

• Google Slides
• PowerPoint Online
• Pear Deck presentations are automatically saved
• Present your Lesson
• Go to peardeck.com

Click Log in  and select Pear Deck . The first time you come here, you'll be prompted to create your Pear Deck account . It just takes a few minutes!

•  Y ou'll be asked to grant permissions to allow Pear Deck access to your files.  Click here   to see why we need access to your files. 
• Go to your Pear Deck Home  screen   anytime and click Create a Lesson (see Create slides below) to start from scratch, Open existing file to use a deck you've previously created, see your presentation's   Session data , open y our account settings , and more!

Create Slides

You'll create all of your Pear Deck lessons/presentations in Google Slides or PowerPoint Online. When you click   Create a new lesson on your Pear Deck Home  screen ,  you will land in the Google Slides or PowerPoint Online editor (depending on your Pear Deck account type). Now you can build interactive slides from scratch and/or add pre-made Slide Templates to your presentation. Note that you can also add Pear Deck Interactive Slides and Slide Templates to any preexisting Google or PowerPoint Online presentations!

Pear Deck's team of educators have created an array of pre-made Formative Assessment Slide Templates that are built to help your students warm up for the day, think more deeply about any subject, develop critical thinking skills, reflect on the lesson, and much more. They're all free and available in the Pear Deck Sidebar Template Library. Learn more here! There is also an array of standards-aligned decks available in our Content Orchard .

In Google Slides

• Open any deck. Put the info, prompt, question, image, etc. that you want students to see on the main body of the slide.

• In the Pear Deck Sidebar, go to the Ask Students a Question  section to add an Interactive Response for students to the slide.

You can also open the Template Library to insert pre-made Interactive Slide Templates   to your presentation.

In Powerpoint Online

• Open any presentation. Put the prompt, question, image, etc. that you want students to see on the main body of the slide.

• In the Pear Deck Sidebar, go to the Ask Students a Question  section and add an Interactive Response   option to the slide.

You can also go to the Template Library and download pre-made Slide Templates , then upload them for your own use.  

Pear Deck presentations are automatically saved as soon as you create them.

Here's how to re-open them:

• Pear Deck for Google Slides presentations can be found in Google Drive . If you launched your presentation from your Pear Deck Home, it is saved in your Google Drive  > Pear Deck folder, which we created for you when you installed Pear Deck. You can find all Pear Deck presentations in the Google Slides app , as they are built within Google Slides.
• Pear Deck for PowerPoint Online presentations can be found in OneDrive . Go to Files  and you'll see your Pear Deck files there.
• You can also see recent files on your Pear Deck Home   page for quick access.

Present your lesson

Students must j oin  a Pear Deck Session in order to engage and respond to your interactive slides! Here's how to present   a Session:

Open the Pear Deck sidebar and click the green Present with Pear Deck   (PowerPoint Online Add-in) or Start Lesson  (Google Slides Add-on) button.

• Give students the Join Code or Join Link from your Projector View or Dashboard View to enter your Session and leave responses. Learn more about how to run your presentation

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Make Your Slideshow Interactive with Pear Deck

Professors Kelly Langley-Cook and Aaron Haberman September 16, 2021

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic we faced the reality of having to teach asynchronous, hybrid, or large but socially distant in-person classes. These teaching modalities made it difficult for many students to actively engage in class experiences and limited the number of student voices. In the summer months leading up to the start of the Fall 2020 semester we sought new technologies that could overcome these barriers and enable us to still offer an engaging classroom experience for UNC students. Our search led us to a software program called Pear Deck. 

Pear Deck is a program that enables instructors to enhance their Google Slides or PowerPoint presentations by creating questions embedded in the presentation that students can respond to and receive feedback on. There is a free version of it available, though we both elected to pay for the enhanced version that unlocked a number of useful features, including the ability to embed audio slides into the presentation. The presentations are created and live in the cloud with students accessing the enhanced presentations on a laptop, tablet, or smart phone device. Instructors have the option of leaving presentations open in the cloud for students to be able to access the presentations any time they want.

Students love interacting with Pear Deck

We both conducted surveys of students using Pear Deck and found that they almost unanimously recommended that we keep using it. In one survey of a 100-level course, 97% of students agreed or strongly agreed that Pear Deck enhanced their educational experience in the course. A sample of the responses from students included comments like these:

Pear Deck was great because I was able to follow along with the presentation better and being able to interact with the presentation was great.

I think this class was better at keeping students engaged than in other courses that present information with lectures. Most students tend to stop paying attention when the teacher just keeps talking and reading off slides. Pear Deck was mostly pictures and videos to keep the students engaged. It also had some slides that required you to participate that I honestly thought were fun. Pear Deck did make this course better because I enjoyed following along the slides and wasn't bored by listening to a teacher lecture and read off slides.

Every student in the class was highly engaged and Pear Deck not only was fun, but easy to use and encouraged me to get easy points!

We found many positives from using Pear Deck

• Increased full student engagement, not just “a few voices” in the room. All students had the opportunity (and indeed the expectation) that they answer the embedded questions.
• Shy or more introverted students who might be hesitant to speak up in class or ask a question, now had a more comfortable means of participating. Pear Deck enabled students to “back channel” questions to the instructor.
• Worked very well for asynchronous lessons. With the audio clip feature, we could embed lecture material and instructions for activities in the presentation. Students completing the lesson asynchronously would be privy to all of the important lesson material and be able to complete the in-class activities.
• Great for giving feedback. Pear Deck enables the instructor to leave feedback to individual student responses (including during class itself), which students will be able to access if they return to the presentation.
• Worked well for hybrid teaching. For classes that are simultaneously in person and on zoom, Pear Deck enables each student to follow along with and answer questions within the same presentation. Regardless of whether students are in person or at home on zoom, they will all link into the same presentation.
• Students can return to material and see their responses and any feedback from the instructor. Because the presentation and the student responses to questions live in the cloud, students are able to access the presentation all semester long, making it helpful when studying for exams.
• Great accessibility for students. Pear Deck can be accessed by any web enabled device, so students don’t need to own or bring a laptop to class. They can use their smart phones or tablets as well.
• It’s free for students! They are provided an access code or a hyperlink for the presentation and use their UNC login and password.
• Great tool for formative assessment. Instructors can use a separate device to monitor how students are responding to particular questions. This can provide real time formative data for the instructor on how well students are understanding key class concepts. Additionally, instructors through this other device can choose to display specific student responses (all anonymously) to the whole class. This creates opportunities for instructors to ensure that different student voices and points of view are being explored.
• Accommodation/Modification for some learners. One plus about Pear Deck is that students have the presentation on their own screens in addition to the big screen being used in class. Instructor can control the pacing of the slideshow to keep everyone on track.
• Makes it easy for instructors to track student attendance and participation. Instructors can always return to the presentation and see exactly who was logged in as well as who did or did not respond to specific questions.

Like all tools, Pear Deck presents some drawbacks

Anyone wanting to implement Pear Deck into their teaching toolbox should be aware of the following drawbacks:

• Although a free version is available, Pear Deck functions best with a subscription which, as of the writing of this article, is $150 a year.
• Some features are not fully functional even with the paid subscription. This is something that needs to be addressed by the makers of Pear Deck. We found that linking websites through the Pear Deck feature did not work a majority of the time. Additionally, the “drag a number” feature is not intuitive, and the parameters need to be defined for the feature to work.
• Like any technology, the connection feature can also be a drawback. If the instructor chooses to record their lessons using that feature on Pear Deck, students may not feel that they need to attend class. If teaching in a hybrid manner, Pear Deck allows students in both environments to participate, but may stifle discussion in chat rooms or face to face as students can rely on the textbox chat instead of actual engagement.
• To implement Pear Deck well as an instructor, two screens are needed. Professor Haberman was able to utilize this well by using the classroom computer and his personal iPad. Professor Langley-Cook had trouble using her laptop and the classroom computer and relied on the projection screen as the second screen, which often led to clunky transitions and difficulty reading the student responses from the podium.
• In a two-year period where many lessons have been conducted through and with screens, screen fatigue might be exacerbated by using Pear Deck. Additionally, as more incoming students arrive at UNC having experienced Pear Deck or a similar technology in prior schooling, the novelty will wear off and students may become bored with it.

Despite some drawbacks we recommend Pear Deck for any instructors at any level! It’s a fun and easy way to enhance your teaching. Before you begin your class, give the learning modules a try and set up a few practice sessions with friends or colleagues so you feel more comfortable with the platform on day one. Students will benefit from the novelty as well as the utility. Expect a bit of a learning curve for you and for students, but one that is not hard to surmount. Over-all we feel that the implementation of Pear Deck will help with energy, assessment, and student engagement.

Ready to get started?

Check out our quick how-to-Pear Deck document . PearDeck.com also has several tutorial videos to help you supplement your slideshows and class activities .

If you are interested in trying Pear Deck during the Spring 2022 semester (and gathering some student data and sharing that with campus) CETL has three small grants to cover the subscription cost. Submit a grant application by October 10 th . As part of the grant, you will be invited to a training and practice session during the last two weeks of fall semester. All UNC instructors, including part-time and graduate student instructors, are eligible to apply.

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Wonder Tools

Make Your Slides Interactive

Jazz up meeting presentations by using pear deck, slido, & poll everywhere.

Welcome back to Wonder Tools ! This newsletter is designed to help you discover the best ways to do things online. Last week’s post showed how to protect your privacy . The week before I shared the best ways to make a timeline .

Thanks for being one of  5,750  subscribers! I appreciate you inviting me into your inbox. If you have suggestions or feedback, hit reply or add a comment. And please share to pay it forward.

Here’s what’s in today’s Wonder Tools post 👇

💻 make your slide decks interactive with pear deck or nearpod, 🙋‍♀️ embed poll questions into your slides with slido or poll everywhere, 🍐 pear deck = interactive slides.

Slides are usually passive. I show. You watch. Pear Deck breaks that paradigm.

Instead of just viewing your slides on a shared screen, people follow along with your slides in their own browser. On any slide where you add an interaction, participants can respond to questions, circle things, or mark things up.

Made by teachers for teachers, it works well in class. But it’s also great for any other kind of presentation, particularly in remote meetings.

Get started with Pear Deck 🍐

Pear Deck pairs with Google Slides .

First install the free add-on .

Then create a new Google Slides presentation. Type slides.new into your Chrome browser for a magic shortcut to a new slide deck.

Next, go to the “Add-ons” menu and click Open Pear-Deck add-on. That opens up a sidebar where you can add an activity to any slide.

Once you’ve set up some slides, switch to present mode, share a link with participants, and they can follow along on their device.

Share Pear Deck slides 🍐

Pear Deck gives you a link to share with your audience so they can follow along in their own browser. You can guide them through or let people move through your slides on their own. As your slides progress, people will see options you’ve given them to:

Drag a marker to indicate a preference, opinion, or estimate

Type an idea, answer a question, or fill in a blank

Predict, estimate or suggest a number related to a meeting topic

As the presenter, you can view participant responses and optionally display them by sharing your screen.

Try it out 🍐

Here’s an example of an interactive slide deck introducing Pear Deck in 5 slides. The deck will also give you a 60-day free premium trial. Here’s another sample Pear Deck interactive presentation on mindfulness . ( Designed by Kaitlin Huwe of Wonderwell Creative).

Limitations:

The pre-made template designs are aimed at elementary school kids, which can be a turnoff for some professionals. You can use your own slide designs, though, so this isn’t a big problem. I’ve used the school-style designs with adults without a problem.

Works only with Google Slides, not with Keynote, PowerPoint or other terrific new slide tools . You can work around this by importing a deck into Google Slides.

Pricing: The free version works well for basic questions. To unlock all question types and an advanced dashboard, it’s $150/year.

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Make Slides Interactive with Nearpod , Slido and Poll Everywhere

Nearpod is an excellent alternative to Pear Deck. It works similarly. You create slides, add interactions, and invite participants to join with a link. Here’s a comparison video . One unique feature of Nearpod: you can integrate questions into videos you’re showing.

I love using Slido for quick polls during meetings and classes. You can use it with or without slides. If you’re presenting with Google Slides, install the free Slido add-on . Polls and their results will update live on the slides you’re showing meeting attendees.

Slido has a bunch of integrations so you can embed live Slido polls into presentations you make with PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi or whatever else.

Poll Everywhere is another excellent choice with free plug-ins for bringing live poll questions and results into slide decks you design with Google Slides, Keynote, or PowerPoint. People can reply in their browser or via SMS.

The Keynote integration enables you to show live websites inside your deck. No other tool I’ve seen lets you integrate full sites directly into a Keynote presentation. It’s an efficient way to liven up slides by showing Web content without switching over to a browser.

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Bonus weekend reads

👩🏾‍💻👩‍🎨 More ways to make great slides 📬📧 Speed up your email 📄✍️ Make gorgeous documents with Craft.do 🖥🧹 Clean up your computer 👦💻 Sites and apps to share with kids

Ready for more?

26 Easy Ways to Use Pear Deck with Google Slides

Learn how to use Pear Deck with Google Slides and keep your students engaged. What is Pear Deck? Pear Deck is a free add-on you can install to use with Google Slides. It’s fun and easy to use. Not sure how to get started with Pear Deck? Read on for the simple, step-by-step instructions and you’ll be on your way!

Table of Contents

My Pear Deck Backstory

Have you ever been tasked with trying something new, then asked yourself, “Where has this been all my life?” That’s how it was with Pear Deck. I was asked by my school district to explore it, then make some tutorial videos. It was one of the most fun teaching tasks I’ve ever had to complete! I’m so happy to be able to share with you some terrific options for using Pear Deck with Google Slides. If you see a project you like, please feel free to use the idea. I’m excited for you to experience Pear Deck yourself. If creating engaging activities for your students is a priority, this post is especially for you.

***Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.***  Already know what you’d like to get from Amazon? Here’s a handy way to get to the website, linked to a very hot item with teachers right now, the auto-tracking selfie stick . Just click on the button below, then browse around and do your shopping.

Take Me To Amazon!

Get the pear deck add-on for google slides.

Before using Pear Deck for the first time, you will need to open up Google Slides . Under “Add-ons” in the top menu bar, click on “Get add-ons”. When you do that, you will see Pear Deck as an option. Since I’m a visual learner, here’s what the process looks like in a video tutorial.

Creating a SlideShow With Pear Deck

Before going any further, I’d like to show you how to use Pear Deck with Google Slides. In this brief tutorial, I’m going to show you the different question options. I’m also going to show you how you can use the Pear Deck Template Library so you don’t have to create all of your slides from scratch.

Do Students Need to Have the Add-On to View a Pear Deck Presentation?

If students are going to present with Pear Deck, they definitely need to install the add-on. In order to participate in lessons with Pear Deck, they need to have the add-on as well. The first tutorial included in this article will show students how to do that. My school district automatically added the add-on to all school district Google accounts.

Presenting a Pear Deck Lesson in Real-Time (Synchronous Learning)

For this article, I’m going to show you how to present a Pear Deck lesson in real-time when you are with your students. You might be with them virtually or in person, but you are all together working on the lesson at the same time. Here’s a brief tutorial to show you how to give students access to your presentation on their own devices as you are presenting. In it you will learn how to add a Pear Deck link to a Google Classroom.

Ideas for Teacher-Led Presentations

One great thing about Pear Deck is its Template Library . In it, you can access and customize a variety of slides in different subject areas. There are also general ideas for beginning a presentation and concluding a presentation. here are some activities I thought of which might be useful and fun to try.

Guide Students in Accessing the Pear Deck Add-On for Their Future Use

Since Pear Deck is an amazing presentation tool, it would be great to teach students how to use it for their presentations as well. Using a screenshot of a Google Slides screen, students could add dots or numbers to where they need to go first, next and last to access the Pear Deck add-on. Or you could have them watch the tutorial embedded above.

Have Students Answer Multiple Choice Questions

If you insert an image or video into the slide show, you could create a separate slide to follow up with questions.

Have Students Draw an Answer on a Canvas You Give Them

This can be used with elementary map activities. Students can draw a route following map directions with different names of streets, for example.

Direct Students to Color in an Area on a Map to Demonstrate Understanding

Following along with the map theme, students could color in a section the teacher directs them to find.

Have Students Observe Primary Source Photos or Documents and Type in Their Observations in Text Form

As a school librarian, I enjoy showing my students primary source photos from past time periods. Students could observe a primary source photo, then type in answers to questions such as, “What do you notice?”

Have Students Watch a Linked Video and Type in Their Observations in Text Form

This activity is pretty self-explanatory. You could also ask specific questions after viewing the video, then have students answer in text form.

Display a Website Link and Have Students Explore, then Report Back in Text Form

Again, you could also ask specific questions after viewing the website, then have students answer in text form.

Have Students Drag a Dot or Pin to Demonstrate Understanding

If I were giving a lesson about parts of a plant, for example, I could have a graphic of a plant on display. Students could drag their dot in response to questions like “Which part of the plant carries water to the rest of the plant?”

Direct Students to Drag a Dot or Pin to Show Agreement or Disagreement

For this activity, I might wait to show student responses until everyone has had a chance to answer. That way, students would not just drag their dots to the most popular choice.

Have Students Drag a Dot or Pin to Show a Location on a Map

I like to give my students a map of the library at the beginning of the year. If I posted a map of the library, students could drag their dot in response to questions I ask, such as, “Where do you go to turn in books?” or “Where are graphic novels located?”

Display a Fiction Author’s Name and Have Students Type the Call Number in Text Form

A lot of my activities are library-related, but may be adapted to any classroom lesson. This could be used for matching authors with book titles as well if a bank of author names was displayed.

Have Students Show Answers in Short Typed Text Form and Display Anonymously to the Class

This could be a speed activity, giving students the opportunity to answer as quickly as they can. Perhaps a good idea for an exit ticket.

Have Students Type Longer Text Answers to Facilitate Discussions

When more thoughtful answers are desired, encourage students to type multiple sentences explaining their thoughts.

Give Students a Virtual School Tour at the Beginning of the Year and Have Them Identify Important Locations Using a Photograph and Dragging Dots

Similar to the library map activity, students could identify various locations in a classroom by dragging their dots.

Have Students Type in a Numbers Only Response

When needing an answer to a math problem, the teacher could have the problem on display, and students could type in the required number quickly.

Have Students Drag Dots to Place on the Book Which Would Come First in Call Number Order

This can also be done with the sequencing of a story. Students could place a dot on which event happened first.

Ideas for Student Presentations

Presenting with Pear Deck opens up a whole new realm of opportunities for students. I know my students have basically mastered presenting with Google Slides by the time they reach fourth or fifth grade. Using Pear Deck with Google Slides would really spark their interest. Student creations might have to be asynchronous (not done together), so here’s a tutorial for how that would be done.

Animal Research Presentation With Questions After Each Section

Each year I have my students complete animal research. I think the older students would enjoy inserting questions for their peers to answer throughout their presentation.

Geography Research Presentation with Interactive Map

Students could display a map graphic, perhaps of a particular state. Viewers could be asked to drag a marker to different landmarks in the state and identify the capital city.

Biography Research Presentation With Peer Text Response

Similar to the animal research project, each year I have students choose a famous person to learn about. Students could present their information, sprinkling questions and text response opportunities for the viewer to participate in throughout the slide show.

Orientation With Opportunity for New Student Questions

A group of students could create a presentation for new students for the next school year. Photos of the classroom could be shown and advice could be given. Viewers could type in any questions they had about the upcoming school year.

Web Portfolio Presentation with Peer Exploration and Comments

My fifth-grade students create online portfolios to display their digital projects with Google Sites . They could share the link to their portfolio website

Road Trip Plan with Map Display

Each spring I have my students plan a pretend road trip. For fourth grade it’s a trip to three national parks, and for fifth grade it’s a trip to three different state capitals. Students could display a map of the United States and list their destinations at the end of the presentation. Viewers would be asked to drag pins to the three different locations visited.

Math Problem Solving Activity with Peer Text Response

Students could create their own math problems and ask for a viewer number only response.

Demonstration of How To Do Something with Peers Putting Steps in Order

Viewers could place a dot on which event happened first. Viewers could also be asked a multiple-choice question about which step would be last, for example.

Tour of a Historical Site with Multiple Choice or Text Questions

Using a series of photographs, students could give a virtual tour of a historic site and sprinkle questions throughout, either in text answer format or multiple-choice format.

An Awesome Pear Deck Mashup with Flipgrid

Here’s a final, terrific Pear Deck idea. Teachers in my district have used Flipgrid and Pear Deck to listen to students read aloud. What a great idea! If you aren’t familiar with Flipgrid, here’s a quick way to learn about it . Flipgrid is a fun way for students to make videos as they participate in class discussions. Like Pear Deck, there are a lot of creative ways to use it to engage students. Here’s a tutorial showing how to use Pear Deck and Flipgrid together.

Another Pear Deck/Flipgrid Mashup Idea

Another way to have students combine Pear Deck and Flipgrid for a read-aloud is to upload screenshots of an entire book (short book for kindergarten or first-grade reading). Create a Google slide show with the photos. In the Pear Deck add-on, set the presentation to be student-paced and share the link with students in a Google classroom. Create a Flipgrid topic for students to record themselves reading. In Flipgrid, when students are getting ready to record, have them choose the screenshot option (to the right of the camera button). Have the students start recording and go back to the Pear Deck to read through the book. When the student finished, stop the recording and submit it as usual to the Flipgrid topic discussion board. It’s a great way to do a reading assessment.

What is the Pear Deck Power Up?

To ensure that videos and animations play correctly in a Pear Deck presentation, something called the Pear Deck Power Up was created. To access it, go to the Chrome Web Store . Once it is installed, your animations and videos should play as intended from within your Pear Deck presentation.

Other Questions About Pear Deck

If you create presentations for work using PowerPoint, you might be wondering if Pear Deck can be used with PowerPoint as well as Google Slides. The answer is yes. If you do a search and ask that question, you will see a whole host of answers and tutorials. Using Pear Deck with Google Slides allows for a few more options, but Pear Deck does work with PowerPoint.

Going to Give One of These Pear Deck with Google Slides Projects a Try?

I hope you have found something to try on this list of Google Slides project ideas. I have a lot of fun with Google slides. It’s an excellent way for students to share information with each other. Do you have any fabulous Google slides projects? I’d enjoy learning about them. I’m always on the lookout for more project ideas.

Another Fun Google Slides Idea

Looking for another fun way to use Google Slides? I’ve got ready-made online classroom seating charts with two different classroom background sizes. It’s ideal for busy teachers, and you can customize the charts to fit your needs. They can be used over and over, and you can have them for free . You’ll get a link to the Google Slide Online Classroom Seating Chart file, and you will be able to customize it by selecting File , then  Make a copy . I hope it simplifies things for you.

Get my free online classroom seating charts!

Have a wonderful week, and have fun creating exciting Pear Deck activities with Google Slides!

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• Digital Storytelling Made Easy: 3 Fun Options For Students
• Helping Reluctant Readers: An Engaging Resource
• Free Ebook Site For Kids Offers Home Access
• Level Books Quickly with Timesaving Teacher Librarian Tips
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• How to Add Sound to Google Slides
• 5 Clever Google Slides Projects for Kids
• Make a Virtual Bingo Game with Google Slides

Lisa Mitchell is a school librarian who likes to use her job as an excuse to stay up far too late reading books and noodling around with tech tools. To learn more about what this website has to offer, click on over to the  Tech Tips  page.

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Preview and Edit the Student View

Do you ever feel uncertain about what your students are seeing on their screens? BE NOT UNSURE! In this article you'll learn how to:

Edit the Student View

Preview the student view, try it out before class, see the student view during a presentation session.

When you present a Pear Deck, students see the following:

• The main body of the slide in its entirety.
• The interactive response, if you added one.
• Open Google Slides or PowerPoint Online. Use the editing tools to add a question, prompt, graph, image, etc. to the main body of the slide. Students will see everything you put on it. Please note that slide animations and videos will only work if you install the Power-up extension.*
• To make a custom interactive slide , open the Pear Deck for Google Slides Add-on or the Pear Deck for PowerPoint Online Add-in menu . Go to the Ask Students a Question section and click on the type of response you want students to have (you can also add pre-made interactive slides from the Template Library). Depending on what you choose, you may be prompted to customize options, such as Draggable icons or Multiple Choice responses. 

The interactive response type becomes visible in the Pear Deck bar at the bottom of the slide.

4. To change the response type, open the slide again. Then, go back to the Ask Students a Question and select a different question type. To change the response options on a Multiple Choice, Draggable, or Website Slide, click on the same question type again and modify the options.

When you present a Pear Deck Session, students see all of the slides in your Deck on their screens. There is a difference in the way Non-Interactive and Interactive Slides look.

There's no limit to the number of Sessions you can present with Pear Deck. You can even join your Sessions as a student to get the full preview of what students will see.

• Then, go to joinpd.com in a separate tab and join your own Session. You can even turn on Student-Paced mode on the Projector View to navigate through all of the slides independently on the Student View.

During a presentation Session, you automatically see your slides and the Pear Deck interactive bar on the Projector View. But you can also review what students are seeing on the Student View. Just click on the Slide Navigator (between the arrow buttons) to open the Slide Drawer. The thumbnails show you exactly how the slides appear on the Student View.

Once you start presenting, try adding a New Prompt from the Navigation Bar to add a new Interactive Slide to the discussion!

For questions, please email [email protected].

Article contributors: Erin M., Michal E.L.