Poll Everywhere

My good friend Dave Page introduced me to the coolest software called Poll Everywhere (www.polleverywhere.com).  This software is free for up to 3o students and allows you to use the student’s cellphones as polling devices where you see real time feedback integrated directly into your powerpoint presentation.  It is extremely simple to use!  Simply create your free account at www.polleverywhere.com and then create your first poll.  You can select from multiple choice, open ended, and goal poll (I have not used this one yet) and then simply create the question you want. 

The system will then generate the poll for you and give you an opportunity to download the powerpoint slide. 

 Simply copy the second slide in the presentation that you downloaded and paste it into your presentation wherever you would like. 

 When you present, make sure you have a connection to the internet and you are good to go!  When your slide comes up your audience (students) will have an opportunity to respond to your question by texting their answers to a designated number.  You and your audience will be able to see the results update live as they come in.

FREE Limitations:
As with all web 2.0 technologies, you have a few limitations that are removed when you upgrade.  One such limitation is the “Poll Everywhere” logo.  This logo remains on the slide and can’t be removed unless you have upgraded your account.  Another limitation is the number of responses that you can receive.  If you have the free account, you are limited to only 30 responses which is fine for most classrooms.  With the free account you are not able to generate a unique word for texting open ended question responses as it automatically generates it’s own code.  (This is not such a big deal…just a little more cumbersome for the texting audience as they must now text a 5 digit code + their question or response instead of texting a single word then their response).

Best/Worst Practices:
I was speaking to an audience of 70+ Paramedics and educators while using www.polleverywhere.com .  At the beginning of the session I use both types of questions (open ended and multiple choice) to briefly educate the audience on how to use the texting responses.  Then throughout the presentation, I run a note on my slides that says “for questions, text ____ + your qestion to _______” and then had the question slide pop up at various times through my presentation. 

This way the audience member could text a question as soon as they think of it.  Then  I would see the question when I got to the slide with the questions poll.  This is a great way to leave your class interactive and non-distracting by holding questions until the appropriate time.

One thing I did learn was to know your audience and BE CAREFUL!  Open ended questions can set you up for some questionable material to be posted.  In the above session my practical jokers started having a little too much fun with the tool.  In this case, it added some humor to the course but made me VERY nervous not knowing what was coming next (See example below).

As usual…with an upgrade you can get the benefit of moderation for this type of poll so that you can avoid questions that could be off topic, vulgar, or inappopriate.

Overall, I am excited to find this software and will continue to use it.  I am seriously considering upgrading to a more premium account already!