{"id":15470,"date":"2022-07-05T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nearpod.com\/blog\/?p=15470"},"modified":"2023-06-26T13:02:33","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:02:33","slug":"10-reasons-why-principals-love-nearpod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nearpod.com\/blog\/10-reasons-why-principals-love-nearpod\/","title":{"rendered":"10 reasons why principals love Nearpod"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are so many resources being thrown at principals, whether it\u2019s coming from teachers, parents, central office, or marketing emails. Seldom do principals encounter a resource that can be used by everyone in the building, including themselves! It\u2019s even more rare when teachers across grade levels and subjects seem to be genuinely excited and enthusiastic about the resource- cue up Nearpod<\/a>! In a nutshell, Nearpod creates a two-way street between the teacher and student, or the presenter and their attendees. This two-way street opens up a myriad of ways to engage, teach, and assess our students or adult learners. Now that you know the gist of Nearpod, let\u2019s dive deep and look at ten reasons principals love Nearpod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 reasons why principals love Nearpod<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/strong> Leveling the playing field<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As principals, one of the great challenges is ensuring high quality Tier 1 instruction across classrooms. Teachers usually have access to a scope and sequence and a textbook, but the day-to-day responsibility to bring the standards to life for students still largely falls on their own ability, experience, creativity, and so forth. Nearpod features over 22,000+ premade lessons, activities, and videos, for all subjects and grade levels. This creates a learning environment where every teacher, at the very least, has access to a high quality, standards-aligned \u201cstarting point\u201d for their lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Explore the lesson library<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

2. Curate from the batch, customize and attach, or create from scratch<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Nearpod<\/figure>
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While the ability to \u201ccurate\u201d from the premade lessons, activities, and videos is amazing and undoubtedly makes life easier for teachers, the ability to \u201ccustomize and attach\u201d truly allows for differentiation and personalization. As principals, we preach differentiation<\/a> and personalization to our teachers all the time, but these two concepts can be  difficult to support through resources and implement in practice.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With Nearpod, teachers can take any Nearpod lesson and make it their own, based on the needs of their students. They can do everything from add\/delete slides, videos, media, assessments and more. Furthermore, teachers can also use Nearpod\u2019s 20+ media and assessment types to create a lesson completely from scratch, or enhance a lesson they created in Google Slides or Powerpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.<\/strong> Standards Alignment: Where did you get that lesson or resource?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Lesson<\/figure>
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The premade lessons, activities, and videos really alleviate a huge challenge and question we often have to ask as principals: \u201cwhere did that lesson come from?\u201d It\u2019s hard to complain about teachers spending their evenings and weekends searching the internet to find lessons and resources that will engage their students, but it also creates uncertainty around quality and standards-alignment.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Nearpod\u2019s lessons are created with the various state and common core standards at the forefront, and oftentimes in collaboration with other trusted publishers you know: Amplify, PHET, iCivics, Common Sense, and Smithsonian to name a few. Teachers can easily search the Nearpod library for lessons, videos, and activities by state, subject, and grade level standards, all the way down to specific strands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Systems Integration – Does it work with what we already use?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The last thing principals want to do is add a resource at their campus that makes teachers feel like it is \u201cjust one more thing.\u201d Usually the sheer amount of ready-to-use lessons and media and assessment types will already have teachers full of excitement, but once they realize the various integrations that exist, they\u2019ll truly begin to see the value of Nearpod as part of their school\u2019s larger ed tech ecosystem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nearpod<\/figure>
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Whether it\u2019s Canvas, Schoology, Google Classroom, or more, Nearpod has you covered. And, let\u2019s be honest, an LMS can be quite the monetary investment. If Nearpod can be the carrot that drives teachers to utilize the LMS with fidelity, then it\u2019s a win-win. Also, let\u2019s not forget about the Google Slides Add-On, ability to upload Powerpoints, Zoom integration, Microsoft Teams integration, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Learn more about LMS integrations<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

5.<\/strong> Eliminate redundancies and save some $$$<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As a dedicated principal who understands that teachers make the world go around, the last thing we ever want to tell them is \u201cno\u201d. However, in reality, there isn\u2019t an infinite amount of funding available, so we oftentimes have to make tough decisions around what resources to keep or let go. Lucky for you, Nearpod\u2019s 20+ features can provide the same or similar functionality that your teachers might love in other resources. Nearpod can be your one-stop-shop, and most importantly, with one price of the School and District Site License<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learn more about Nearpod<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

6.<\/strong> Deliver the content in an engaging way<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As principals, when we observe classrooms, usually the first thing we are looking for is, \u201care the students engaged?\u201d Any of us who have stood in front of a classroom of 24 third graders, 32 eighth graders, or 36 sophomores knows how challenging it is to engage students. I mean, look at the competition: cell phones, Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, home life, peer pressure, and the list goes on. However, if the students are not engaged, then even the best lesson on paper will fall flat. Nearpod provides 12 different means of representation through multiple learning modalities to scaffold instruction and increase student engagement. I like to think of the features below as falling in the \u201cengage and teach\u201d bucket of all that Nearpod offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nearpod<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

7. Assessments and real-time data<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As a principal, there is nothing worse than knowing your teachers are \u201cteaching their heart out\u201d, and not seeing the achievement results that we desire on quizzes, common assessments, etc. Nearpod streamlines 11 different means of expression for students to provide teachers with valuable feedback throughout the lesson. Teachers can leverage these \u201cchecks for understanding\u201d to uncover misconceptions, see trends in learning, and eliminate surprises. The real-time and post-session data informs instruction and allows teachers to pivot quickly if students need reteaching, small group support, additional practice, and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nearpod<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Explore our formative assessment tools<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

8. Flexibility across learning environments<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Principals have never had to manage as many variables as they do currently. In today’s learning environment, there’s an importance and need to deliver lessons in flexible formats to pivot quickly from in-person to remote. Nearpod’s roots started in the classroom, but it’s ability to flex between different classroom settings makes it easier for teachers to switch between in-person, virtual, and hybrid learning. Any Nearpod lesson can be launched in-person or remotely, and both Live (Synchronously) or Student-Paced (Asynchronously). This is key, for several reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n