Today was the first day of a new semester at our university. I teach a Technology for Teachers course in the School of Education – but today…

• I forgot our syllabus
• I couldn’t log in to Moodle
• I couldn’t type anything
• My class was jumping rope in the middle of the room and doing the conga line in the back of the room
• My class was completely out of control – completely
• I stamped “Go to the veterinarian” on the foot of a parent passing by the room

Oh wait!! That was my nightmare! Not reality. (I had you going, right?)  Every year I have teacher nightmares that involve loss of control and disorganization probably because I normally am a control freak and very organized. My nightmare got me thinking about words.

In reality, I asked my class this semester to choose 2-3 words to describe themselves and text them to Poll Everywhere for our word cloud. Here is the result:

An awesome group – right? It’s an easy and fun way to get to know students. Recently Poll Everywhere announced new changes. “You asked for it, you got it — A,B,C voting for everyone! Now, when you choose to poll in Presenter Session mode, the audience can simply text in your session name (your username), and after that, they can respond to multiple choice polls with no more than a single letter, number, “True”, “False”, etc. It even works for open-response questions. Once they’ve joined your session, you activate* an open-ended question and they just text their brilliant response. No auto-generated (e.g. “980325”) code necessary, ever again. Ta-daaaa!”  My class loved this newer, easier to use version. The visual settings were also upgraded to allow for better color choices. Please click this link to read about all the new upgrades!

In reality, I had a great first day of class. Nothing like my nightmare, thankfully. What will you be doing your first day back for the new semester?