Learning & Leading Through Technology

Tip

Use PollEverywhere to Ignite Your PD Sessions

Problem: You need to engage your faculty and check for understanding during professional development (PD) sessions.

Here’s a solution: PollEverywhere
allows you to engage your audience
members and quickly assess their
retention of your presentations.
PollEverywhere is a web 2.0 tool
that uses text messaging to collect
responses and display them in real
time. Faculty can use any device
that is text capable to respond
and can even respond online. Polls
can be multiple choice or open
ended, can include images and
mathematical symbols, and can be
created without signing up for an
account. Once a poll is created, it
can be:
•;Downloaded as a PowerPoint
and inserted into presentations
•;Downloaded;as;a;Flash;file
and inserted into a Prezi
•;Viewed;online;through;a;link
•;Sent;to;Twitter,;where;followers;can
tweet a response
I have seen how a room full of high
school teachers gets excited about
pulling out their cell phones and
interacting;with;content.;They;get
wide eyed when they realize that their
responses appear in real time and
wait with interest to see where the
majority response will lie as bars and
percentages move across the screen.

The;free;version;allows;up;to;30 responses per poll, but the several paid tiers offer more responses and other features.

Aditi Roa is a technology integration specialist in Houston, Texas, USA. She recently received her master’s in instructional technology from Johns Hopkins University.