Pear deck vs. Quizizz Lessons

How do they measure up and which one will help you work smarter and not harder in your classroom?

If you want to watch a more brief explanation by me of how these two platforms differ, check out my youtube video about this topic!

I recently was suggested by a follower on my instagram to try out Quizizz with my students. I teach high school and I have used Quizizz before and never found it to offer anything that I couldn’t get in a better format from other sites. However, after some encouragement and being told that they had added new features, I ventured over to Quizizz and I was SHOOK. They added a whole new feature to their website called “Lessons”, which is a way to add interactive questions to powerpoint slides similar to those of you who like Peardeck or Nearpod. I am not as familiar with Nearpod, but I am very well versed in Peardeck so let me break down for you the differences between these two sites and which I prefer for the different features!

Anonymous vs. Not – Winner? Peardeck

I’m going to be coming at these topics from my Peardeck brain since that is what I have been using for years and have really loved for my lessons. I also have a premium subscription so keep in mind that some of the features I am talking about may not be available on the free version. Something I really enjoy about Peardeck premium is the live dashboard. This allows you as a teacher to open a live view on another tab, window, or device, to view what students are saying in live time, as well as control the presentation (timers, responses, etc.). This teacher dashboard gives you, the teacher, the opportunity to see each student’s answer with their name listed below, but when you project the answers on the board they are anonymous. This feature is so helpful for me for two main reasons.

1. It makes it so that any answers I want to project on the board in order to make corrections or point out common errors don’t have the student’s name listed, so there is no embarrassment.
2. It is a well known rule in my classroom that I do not cold call during Peardeck. If we are doing a Peardeck in my classroom, my students know that I have only called on them if I already saw they got the answer right.

This gives me a great understanding of where every single student is at in live time (hence why I have essentially ditched all worksheets for Peardeck activities and have immensely cut back on my classwork grades). This also gives the students in my class to try without fear of failure or embarrassment, as they know the only person who is seeing their errors is me.

How does Quizizz compare?

Quizizz has a similar, but not quite as great option. For Quizizz, you can either choose to have the students enter their names themselves at the beginning of the lesson, or you can choose to use a silly nickname generator which keeps them anonymous (think how kahoot does it). This does, however, keep them anonymous from you as the teacher as well, which can be a major let down when you need it. We also know how students love to enter “silly” nicknames of their own, which can be a problem from time to time.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous – Winner? Peardeck (by a nose)

Especially in this educational climate, asynchronous learning is essential. I think one of the benefits of doing remote teaching, is that when we no longer need it, we will all be masters at flipped classroom lessons! In the meantime, I think asynchronous work will always have it’s place in the classroom if you know how to use it to your benefit.

For Peardeck there is the option called “Student Paced”. You can run an entire lesson as asynchronous through this feature from start to finish, or you can turn it on and off at any time during a lesson. This is something I have really loved, because it allows for great differentiation. Often I will ask a temperature question to see how students are feeling with the material, then do small group with students struggling while the others continue through the work with student paced. Once small group is done, I turn synchronous back on, and we go over the work they did without me as a class!

This easy on and off switch is what makes Peardeck win by a nose. Quizizz has the same feature of being able to run a lesson as asynchronous or synchronous, however, you have to choose one or the other at the beginning. There is no on/off switch that allows you to make the work asynchronous at will during a lesson. However, there is a piece about the asynchronous work for Quizizz that makes it FAR superior to Peardeck, which I will get to in a little bit.

Personalization – Winner? Too close to call

Both of these sites have a ton of features that make it easy to make your lessons your own, so I will list what I love about both, and what stands out for each.

1. Both sites have great ways to customize your slides while creating your lesson, as well as the ability to use premade work (ie. uploading google slides, ppt, etc.)
2. Both have ways with which you can steal and borrow from others instead of starting from scratch. For Peardeck they have an amazing Template Library, curated by the Peardeck team, designed for different subjects, and updated regularly. For Quizizz, they have the teacher library, which allows you to search for lessons already made by other Quizizz users.

Some things that Peardeck has that Quizizz does not

1. Adding questions on the fly – Peardeck allows you to insert questions on the fly at any point during your lesson. This is a great way to personalize the learning for each unique class, and every time that you teach it. It only saves the edits for that one lesson, and does not edit the original slideshow presentation.
2. Premium response options like draggable and draw – dragging icons as well as the draw features are two premium response options that I really enjoy. They are not essential, however, I find them to be helpful and do use them quite often.
3. Feedback – Peardeck allows you to write responses to student answers. This can be really helpful to provide individualized feedback during the lesson. The only con, is that students don’t get a notification of feedback, you need to prompt them to view it.
4. Student takeaways – There is a feature of “publish takeaways” which allows Peardeck to create google doc of each student’s answers and shares it with them automatically on google drive so that they can review their work and responses afterwards.

Some things that Quizizz has that Peardeck does not

1. Quizizz has a lot of the same question options that Peardeck has with a few extras. There are options like checkbox, which Peardeck doesn’t have
2. The library of lessons is an amazing tool to be able to create a lesson quickly (much quicker than peardeck)
3. Timers – Peardeck only has 3 timer options (30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes). I find this super annoying if I’m being honest. Quizizz has timers from 5 seconds, all the way up to 15 minutes! (11 timer options in total)
4. Classes – Quizziz allows you to create classes which students can sign up to be a part of. This allows you to easily assign asynchronous work. My favorite part? You can make a setting that forces students to enter a guardian email when signing up for classes, and you can email a report of each student’s work to their parents for any activity!!!! Talk about easy parent updates. I will definitely be utilizing that next year!

Fun – Winner? Quizizz by a mile!

Peardeck can be DRY! I personally love using it, and have found some ways to create games with it to make it more competitive, but it is essentially like a worksheet. Therefore, it can be kind of dry for students (keep in mind this is not referring to the Peardeck Factory which is a vocabulary game also included on the Peardeck website).

Quizizz, is NOT! It takes the best parts of a game site like Kahoot, and uses it with the comprehension and analysis of a Peardeck activity! There is music, timer noises, a leaderboard, points, and a winner if you choose to have those settings enabled. This is both in the synchronous and asynchronous options, making it a great in-class activity, as well as something that I love to leave for a sub or a review activity they can complete independently. If nothing else, it is a great thing to use in order to switch things up when my students say, “Peardeck AGAIN Miss Parille?”.

Data – Winner? Quizizz for SURE!!!

This is the last, and honestly most compelling reason for me to love Quizizz. This is a feature that I have longed for Peardeck to have since I started using it, but has never incorporated…Correct Answers!!

You may have picked up on the fact that this was a feature from the last section, because how can you have a leaderboard and a winner without points and correct answers? This is the best part about Quizizz, because whether you are teaching synchronously or asynchronously, students can see whether they got their answer right or wrong and so can you! It even works with…FILL IN THE BLANK *gasps in Spanish* This means this is FANTASTIC to leave as sub plans on a day when you are out, because you don’t have to go over it the next day, like you would if you ran a Peardeck (something I have really hated in the past, because it felt like I lost two days instead of one).

This also means that you, as the teacher, have a much easier way to understand how your students are doing with the material. Not only to you get a report of who got each question right and wrong, but Quizizz runs data reports for you at the end of the lessons. You can see a percentage correct for each student, each question, or the entire lesson for all of your classes. This quick glance of comprehension is invaluable as a teacher.

So what’s the final score?

Honestly, I personally don’t have one. I will be using both of these sites moving forward. I think it’s great to have variety, and I love the unique features that each site offers.

HOWEVER

If you want a final decision from me? Quizizz! I hate to say it, as I have been a die hard Peardeck fan for years, but I cannot justify the price of premium when all of the features I described above are FREE when it comes to Quizizz. So, if you have always wanted to use Peardeck or Nearpod, but could never fork over that kind of money, Quizizz is your way to go!

Please share this or my youtube video with a friend who you want to help work smarter and not harder in the classroom!