The following resources are webpages and videos that explain the professional development opportunities available to K-12 educators and other education professionals who are Nearpod users.

Become a Nearpod Certified Educator

A Nearpod Certified Educator (Nearpod, n.d.-a.) is a teacher or education professional who can use Nearpod to create and deliver high-quality content, instruction and activities. These Educators learn at their own pace to understand basic and advanced concepts and uses of Nearpod, which is a beneficial learning experience that participants can apply to their own classrooms and workplaces. Not only do participants gain valuable skills to effectively use Nearpod, but they also gain insight and knowledge that supports their understanding of education technology in general. In addition to these advantages, there are even more good reasons to become a Nearpod Certified Educator, including the opportunity to network with other education technology professionals and experts.

Below is a video summary of the Nearpod Certified Educator program:

Access professional development (PD) opportunities

Upon becoming Nearpod users, K-12 teachers get instant access to professional development opportunities where they can earn PD hours (Cobb, 2024), expand their professional networks, enhance their pedagogical knowledge and gain insight about new ways of teaching and engaging with students. Opportunities include:

• Camp Engage (Nearpod, 2024), a bi-yearly free virtual conference for anyone who is curious about Nearpod and Flocabulary, current users or education professionals who want to increase their skills and knowledge. The multi-day event includes a variety of learning sessions for all attendees.

Below is a video summary of what Camp Engage is all about:

• Live webinars that Nearpod users can keep up with through the calendar of events
• On-demand webinars about a variety of topics, including how to do professional development in the summertime

Join learning communities

Nearpod has several ongoing learning communities that K-12 teachers can join when they become Nearpod users, including:

• Nearpod Educators Facebook group is a group of over 43,000 teachers of varying levels of experience that shares resources, brainstorms and discusses how to incorporate Nearpod in your classroom.
• Nearpod PioNears is a professional learning community of Nearpod and Flocabulary users who want to expand their professional networks, build their community leadership skills, share resources and enhance their training and teaching skills. There is a cohort of selected program participants each year.
• Flocabulary Certified Educators, is a program for school administrators and teachers who are current users of Flocabulary and are looking to enhance their skills and knowledge of the digital tool, in order to increase student academic achievement, create inclusive learning environments and building better learning resources.

References

Cobb, J. (2024, June 19). Extend your professional development learning and earn Nearpod PD hours for teachers. Nearpod. https://nearpod.com/blog/professional-development-pd-hour

Nearpod. (n.d.-a.). Certified educator. https://nearpod.com/certified-educator

Nearpod. (n.d.-b.). Nearpod resources. https://nearpod.com/resources#

Nearpod. (n.d.-c.). Communities | Nearpod. https://nearpod.com/communities

Nearpod. (2022, November 22). Join the Nearpod educator community. [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks8PsFLPK6Q&ab_channel=Nearpod

Nearpod Team. (2018, March 4). 5 reasons why you should be a Nearpod certified educator. Nearpod. https://nearpod.com/blog/5-reasons-nearpod-certified-educator/

Nearpod Team. (2024, April 11). Camp engage: Virtual professional development for teachers. Nearpod. https://nearpod.com/blog/camp-engage-virtual-professional-development-for-teachers/