A Nearpod alternative for teaching from your own PDFs
If your lessons are already worksheets and past papers, and you want to write on them live while every student's screen follows, ClassKite is built around that. Nearpod is built around slide lessons with activities between the slides.
Teaching from your PDFs, student layers and running practice are free on Teacher Basic. The Live Student Grid, Reports and the Gradebook are part of class analytics, included with Teacher Plus and the School plan.
The problem
Nearpod builds a lesson as a series of slides with activities between them. Teachers bring in slides, PDFs or videos, or start from its library of ready-made lessons, then add polls, quizzes and other activities. That suits a lesson planned as a slide deck. If you teach by working through a worksheet on the board and writing as you go, you want the page itself to be the lesson, and your writing to reach every student.
The PDF is the lesson
In ClassKite you upload the PDF and teach from it as it is. You write, highlight and draw on your layer, your strokes appear on students' devices as you write, and follow-me paging keeps their screens on your page. Each student has their own layer of the same pages for notes and working, and you can open it to leave private feedback. To check understanding, send a practice: answers are marked automatically. With Teacher Plus or the School plan, the Live Student Grid shows who is stuck while they answer.
How it works
- 1
Upload your PDFs
Upload your PDFs, including slide decks exported as PDF. Nothing is converted or rebuilt.
- 2
Teach and write live
Work through the page on the board. Students' screens follow your page and show your writing as it happens.
- 3
Check understanding
Send a practice to the class. Answers are marked automatically, and in an ordinary practice students see at once whether they were right.
- 4
Follow up
Open a student's layer to write feedback on their work. With Teacher Plus, Reports and the Gradebook add the results up.
In the classroom
A chemistry teacher opens last year's past paper, works through question 3 on the board while every screen follows, then sends a five-question practice on the same topic. Students write their working on their own layer, and the teacher opens two of those layers to circle the step that went wrong.
An illustrative example of how a lesson can run, not a customer case study.
What you get
Your PDFs as they are
Worksheets, past papers and exported slide decks open exactly as they print. There are no slides to rebuild.
Your writing on every screen
Your strokes reach students' devices live, and follow-me paging keeps everyone on your page.
A layer for every student
Students write their working on their own copy of the page. Only they and you can see it.
Auto-marked practice
Six question types, marked automatically: multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank (word or number), matching and jumbled sentence.
Quizzes under quiz conditions
Run a one-attempt SBQ on any plan. You see when a student leaves the page or copies a question.
Free for students
Students join with your code and never pay. There are no per-student charges.
Explore more of ClassKite
Frequently asked questions
When is Nearpod the better fit?
When you want ready-made lessons, or activities ClassKite doesn't have. Nearpod offers a library of more than 22,000 ready-made lessons, videos and activities, and activities such as polls, open-ended questions, Draw It, VR field trips and simulations. ClassKite has no lesson library, and its questions are auto-marked types only, with no polls or open-ended answers. Nearpod lists LMS and rostering integrations for schools and districts; ClassKite does not connect to an LMS. (Compared with Nearpod's own website, checked 22 October 2026.)
Can the whole class see what I write?
Yes, on every plan. Once you share the section, students follow your layer in their Teacher view and your writing appears as you write it. On Nearpod's pricing page, annotating content slides for the whole class to see is listed with the school and district plan (checked 22 October 2026).
Can I use my existing worksheets and slides?
Yes, as PDFs. Upload worksheets and past papers directly, and export slide decks to PDF first. ClassKite does not import Nearpod lessons or their activities.
Can I see who is struggling during the lesson?
With Teacher Plus or the School plan, the Live Student Grid shows each student's progress as they answer. On Teacher Basic the whole live grid is shown blurred.
Do students need accounts?
Students need a free ClassKite account: they create it when they join your class with its code, or you import a class list and ClassKite creates the accounts. Students never pay.
Try ClassKite with your class
Start free as a teacher, or see how it rolls out across a whole school.
Teacher Basic is free, with no payment details needed