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The Student Toolbox gives students access to annotation tools — including a pen, text tool, and eraser — directly in their Student View during a Pear Deck session. Teachers control whether the toolbox is available. When enabled, students see the toolbox icon in the lower-right corner of their Student View.

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Enable or Disable the Student Toolbox

The Student Toolbox is controlled from the Pear Deck sidebar during a session.
  1. Open your presentation in Google Slides or PowerPoint Online and launch the Pear Deck sidebar.
  2. Start or resume a session. The toolbox setting is available once a session is active.
  3. In the Pear Deck sidebar, locate the Student Toolbox toggle.
  4. Turn on the toggle to enable the toolbox for students, or turn it off to disable it.
  5. Verify the result: When enabled, students see the toolbox icon in the lower-right corner of their Student View. When disabled, the icon does not appear.

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Use the Toolbox as a Student

Students can open and use the toolbox from their Student View when a teacher has it enabled.
  1. Join the session using a Join Code at joinpd.com or the Join Link shared by the teacher.
  2. Look for the toolbox icon in the lower-right corner of the Student View.
  3. Click the toolbox icon to open the tool panel.
  4. Select a tool and use it to annotate the current slide.
  5. To close the toolbox, click the toolbox icon again.
Toolbox annotations are for the student’s own reference and do not appear in the Teacher Dashboard or affect submitted responses. To submit a response, use the response area on the slide.

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Understand Available Tools

The Student Toolbox includes tools for annotating slides during a session:

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Resources

Present a Session

Launch a session, invite students, and run your lesson from the Projector View.

The Teacher Dashboard

View student responses and manage session controls from the Teacher Dashboard.
Last modified on July 16, 2026