Nearpod Selected by Connellsville Area School District to Implement 21st-Century Educational Content and Increase Student Engagement

Nearpod, the most comprehensive Student Engagement Platform for K-12 teachers, today announces its partnership with Connellsville Area School District, as the district expands beyond its initial pilot to increase student engagement and teacher productivity district-wide. Since launching Nearpod district-wide at the start of the school year, the district has recently surpassed a major Nearpod milestone with more than 1,000 lessons launched and over 23,000 active student sessions across the eight schools in the district.

The district, which achieved a 1-to-1 ratio with students to devices two years ago, had been looking for a way to make their technology more student-centric and allow for two-way communication between teachers and students. Variations in the technology included everything from interactive whiteboards to traditional projectors and dry erase boards.

After hearing from teachers who were already using Nearpod in their own classrooms, the district’s Director of Technology, Kevin Ghost, discovered the platform’s ability to engage an entire class through relevant content and interactive tools like VR field trips, 3D models and live quizzes. This early adoption and success led the district to select Nearpod to bridge all academic devices like interactive flat panel displays and Chromebooks districtwide and increase the teachers’ technological capabilities in the classroom.

By replacing its existing equipment with a one to one classroom environment, the rural district, with more than 4,300 students, has been able to create a much more consistent learning and teaching experience. As a result of the platform’s user-friendly experience, the district has already seen success with adoption amongst its teachers and students alike who have expressed appreciation for its ability to promote two-way student-teacher communication.

“Our goal was to transform our rural district from one where teachers and students used disparate technology into one that helps all students and teachers thrive in a 21st-century learning environment,” said Kevin Ghost, Connellsville’s Director of Technology. “Nearpod was the turnkey solution we had been searching for. It has allowed us to provide a seamless experience that encourages lesson plan collaboration between our teachers and a positive environment where students are active participants in their learning.”

With Nearpod, teachers can launch a presentation while ensuring all students stay on the same screen and offer individual word prompts and assignments or direct students to work at their own pace. Additionally, teachers can spotlight students’ work in a frictionless way, as well as encourage every student to participate. The Nearpod Lesson Library gives teachers access to ready-to-run lessons that can be easily customized and the District Library allows teachers across the entire district to create and share lessons with their peers.

“Connellsville has put collaboration at the center of its recent technology initiative to build student engagement, expanding the ways in which they can bring student excitement and wonder into the classroom,” says Guido Kovalskys, CEO and co-founder of Nearpod. “By choosing a flexible technology platform, administrators and teachers are able to expand and adapt over time to create an equitable learning environment across the entire district.”

Nearpod provides 7,000+ standards-aligned lesson resources for K-12 topics that feature a variety of interactive, engagement-boosting tools. Now, teachers can also search by standards in the Nearpod Lesson Library, making it easier for teachers to decide whether a lesson fits their needs. The innovative nature of the company’s offerings along with its ability to deliver content to any web-enabled device in a teacher’s classroom, from tablets and phones to Chromebooks and desktops, gives teachers the ability to deliver high-quality content that meets all their students’ needs.

To discover Nearpod and learn if it’s the right solution for your district, visit: nearpod.com.

About Nearpod

Nearpod, recently named EdTech Digest’s Company of the Year, is the most comprehensive Student Engagement Platform for K-12 teachers. Nearpod works with any classroom technology from tablets and smartphones to laptops and Chromebooks to help engage students with activities such as Virtual Reality, PhET and Desmos, and with more than 7,000 ready-to-run lessons created in partnership with leading brands like Common Sense Education and the Pulitzer Center. Nearpod recently acquired Flocabulary, a learning platform that helps students thrive by bringing the K-12 curriculum to life through hip-hop. Beyond classroom instruction, the company revitalizes teacher development through Teacher Professional Learning content that cultivates classroom-changing strategies for educators. To learn more, visit: nearpod.com.

Contact Information

Rachel Stoczko

Media Contact

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nearpod@vscconsulting.com