Clickers are often used to poll students in large classes. However, not everyone has clickers, or uses them enough to justify having their students purchase them. With Poll Everywhere, you can poll students and gather text-based feedback using just a cell phone or laptop… which, let’s face it, most of your students probably have!
Why might you use Poll Everywhere? Well, maybe you want to quickly poll students and find out what they already know about the topic on which you are about to present. Or, maybe you are going to present and you want them to be able to share their questions so you can address them after the presentation. Perhaps they’ve just completed an assigned reading or activity and you want to give them a little quiz question to see if it was effective. Maybe you just have some housekeeping to take care of, like figuring out a date that works for everyone to take a test. Whatever! The possibilities are endless.
How do you use it? Simply type in your question, how many times each person may respond, and the ways in which they may respond. These include text messaging, web link, Smartphone… even Twitter! Using their preferred method, they type in the code that matches their response choice (or, with open-ended responses, a code and their message) and the poll results are updated immediately. Once the poll is finished, you can even save it as a PowerPoint or Keynote slide.
What are the details? You can sign up for a free account, which allows up to 30 responses per poll, at www.polleverywhere.com. Standard text messaging rates would apply. This will not generally be a problem, especially for students who usually have generous, if not unlimited, texting plans. However, they should still be made aware and given the option of using a computer or (if they have one) their smartphone’s browser. If there are students who do not have phones or laptops, adjust the settings so multiple responses can be made per device and they can share with a neighbor.
