It's Time to Climb!

 
Last week at ISTE Nearpod rolled out a new gamification feature for their interactive presentations. I participated in the spring beta test of this new feature called Time to Climb and I am very excited that it is now available for everyone to use.

Teachers launch the new feature as a standalone game or as part of a presentation. There are (so far) two themes to choose from - a Himalayan or space mountain to climb. You can also choose whether or not to randomize the answers. 

When students join the game, they are prompted to choose a character. 

Teachers see the characters pop up on their screen and if they hover on the character, they see the name associated with it.


When everyone has joined, the teacher hits start and the game begins. 

Kids see a screen with questions to answer.

Teachers can see the questions and then a leaderboard and positions on the virtual mountain. Climbers pass each other as they correctly answer questions.

At the end of the game, one climber wins and joins two runner ups in the winners circle.

If you're anxious to try out this new feature, you can head to the Nearpod Library and try out one of the almost 50 games that already exist. When I demoed this feature for elementary teachers in my district in the spring, they were so excited to try it that they asked me to put many games into our district's Nearpod Library.

Another way you can use the feature is to add it to presentations you create for yourself. When you are in the creation mode, click the + sign to add a new slide. Then click Add Activity. Time to Climb should be the first option on the left. Select it and start writing your questions.

The graphics and cute and the whole game is a simple quiz feature with climbing graphics, but I love that it can take place right inside Nearpod's app. And even though the whole thing has a strong cute vibe, I think high schoolers would get a kid out playing it, if not only in an ironic way.

This new feature is just one more thing to love about Nearpod, released just in time to test it out this summer so we are all ready to launch it in our classrooms this fall.