User Map Experience

Ideal User: Samantha Smith

Age: 42

Profession: Elementary School Special Education Teacher

Characteristics: Ms. Smith has been a special education teacher for 14 years. She loves her
career and her favorite part of teaching is when students finally grasp a concept. She is not very
savvy when it comes to technology.

Transitioning from in the Classroom to Virtual Learning

Ever since, COVID-19 hit, Ms. Smith’s whole classroom dynamic changed. Her routine

went from seeing her students smiling faces, in-person, five days a week for eight hours a day,
to seeing her students through a screen for two hours a day. Ms. Smith has still never

completely adjusted to this new way of teaching. She gets through her lessons, but she’s not

sure if students are actually understanding the material.

Distance Learning Experience

The transition from face-to-face to online learning has not only been difficult for Ms.

Smith, but for her students as well. Ms. Smith did not make her lessons engaging or interactive.

Her students were confused and would lose focus after the lessons because she would just

lecture the whole class session. She tried her best and put her all into each and every lesson,

but she just didn’t know how to make virtual lessons engaging and interactive. She asked a co-

teacher for some advice and he recommended nearpod!

How nearpod Works

 With a nearpod, you can make every lesson interactive. Students can join collaborative,

and engaging activities, like virtual reality, simulations, and gamified quizzes. As the teacher,

you’ll always know where your students are with nearpod’s formative assessments - including

polls, open-ended questions, “draw its” and much more. You have the option to start from

scratch, or get started with something you already have. You can upload resources like

PowerPoints, Google Slides, and videos, and then add formative assessments within seconds.

You can even add questions directly into videos to make them interactive.

There are three different teaching modes you can choose from once you’re ready to

launch your lesson - Live Participation, Student-Paced, or Front of Class. In Live Participation

mode, you control the pace and students participate on their devices, either in person or

remotely with web conferencing. In Student-Paced mode, students move through and

participate on their own. WIth Front of Class mode, you can use nearpod without student

devices and facilitate collaborative discussions.

Ms. Smith’s Experience Using nearpod

 Ms. Smith decided to give Nearpod a try. She began by using a lesson she already had.

She uploaded additional resources like a PowerPoint and videos from YouTube into nearpod.

She also added formative assessments and questions directly into videos to make them

interactive. After creating her lesson, Ms. Smith was so proud of her lesson and couldn’t wait to

teach her students.

Ms. Smith’s Overall Thoughts on nearpod

The next day arrived, and she finally got to teach her lesson using a nearpod. The students
loved the videos and gamified quizzes and they had so much fun that they didn’t even notice the
formative assessments. The lesson was a success. Ms. Smith was so pleased that the students
were engaged the entire time and understood the lesson. Not only was Ms. Smith happy with
how her lesson turned out, but her students were too. They asked if they could use the nearpod
again tomorrow. Ms. Smith finally found the tool she was looking for to make her lessons
engaging and interactive.