Edtech Leader Nearpod Sees Remarkable Growth as Students Interact on Platform More Than 1.5 Billion Times in 2020

Nearpod, the leading instructional platform that merges formative assessment and dynamic media, was used to teach 19.5 million lessons in 2020, providing educators with 1.5 billion insights into student learning. These milestones illustrate the widespread growth in engaging, instructional classroom technology in the past year, both in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to its growth, the company is also announcing the launch of new content and product features that satisfy the evolving needs of users and provide further opportunities for meaningful connections for students with their teachers and peers. 

Nearpod was originally created to support teacher and student connections in physical, device-rich classroom settings by providing engaging media and real-time insights into student learning. During the pandemic, Nearpod became instrumental in helping teachers and students connect virtually. To better understand how teachers were utilizing the platform during the pandemic as well as how they plan to continue use post-pandemic, Nearpod surveyed 703 U.S. K-12 educators in December 2020 and January 2021. 

This survey revealed that 99% of teachers who used Nearpod during the pandemic plan to continue using the platform once they return to the physical classroom. What’s more, 87% of teachers who never used Nearpod before the pandemic now view it as a useful tool for both virtual and in-person instruction. The company also learned that teachers were seeking more ways to adapt live instruction in the moment and make adjustments when a misunderstanding occurs.

Taking these user insights into consideration, the company is rolling out a suite of new product feature upgrades to prioritize its platform functionality to meet teachers’ evolving needs. To make lesson creation faster, and live instruction even more enriching and flexible, Nearpod’s new features, which vary by license type, include: 

• Whiteboard, which can be deployed during a Live lesson, to provide space for the teacher to model, address a misconception and more. Students are able to see what the teacher is doing in real-time and follow-along from their device.
• Live Teacher Annotation, which allows teachers to annotate on slides during a Live lesson, highlighting a section, typing a note or drawing out an example. Students are able to see the annotations in real-time on their devices, giving everyone a front-row seat in the classroom.
• Video and Activity Banks, which give teachers the ability to even more quickly “Nearpodize” their existing lessons with an ever-growing library of interactive videos and pre-made, standards-aligned activities.

Further, Nearpod has continuously grown its new Interactive Video library since its launch in August. It’s added more than 3,000 interactive video lessons from trusted content providers, including Crash Course and LearnZillion, as well as 126 Nearpod Originals, covering topics and figures like The Tuskegee Airmen, Black Holes and Multiplying Fractions. In total, Nearpod now features over 15,000 standards-aligned slide and video-based lessons and activities. 

“As more and more teachers turn to technology to magnify their impact with students, adding content and features that simplify engaging classroom experiences remains critical,” stated Pep Carrera, CEO of Nearpod. “We stay in close communication with our community and overwhelmingly, we heard the need for tools that offer flexibility for live annotation. We took that feedback to heart as we thought about how to further make Nearpod the center of instruction, regardless of the learning setting. We’re so excited to see teachers put features like Live Teacher Annotation and Whiteboard to quick use.”

These milestones and product enhancements come on the heels of the company’s launch of ‘Front-of-Class’ mode, providing opportunities for teachers to turn to Nearpod in both 1:1 settings as well as from the front of their classroom. Nearpod also recently expanded support for hybrid and distance learning, including voice recording and seamless Zoom integration so students can join a lesson and video conference with one click. 

To learn more about Nearpod’s latest features and how to support distance, hybrid and in-person learning experiences with the platform, visit Nearpod.com 

About Nearpod
Nearpod offers an interactive, instructional platform that merges formative assessment and dynamic media for live and self-paced learning experiences inside and outside of the classroom. Nearpod is a device-agnostic platform that engages students with activities such as VR Field Trips, PhET simulations and Desmos, and features more than 15,000 ready-to-run interactive lessons, videos and activities created in partnership with leading brands like Common Sense Education and Smithsonian. In 2019, Nearpod acquired Flocabulary, a learning platform that engages students in academically rigorous K-12 curriculum while promoting literacy through hip-hop videos. Together, Nearpod and Flocabulary reach educators in the 100 largest school districts in the US. In 2018, Nearpod was named EdTech Digest’s Company of the Year. To learn more, visit www.nearpod.com.

Contact Information

Rachel Stoczko

Communications Manager

Nearpod

Contact via E-mail