Poll Everywhere has many new features

The built-in testing panel

For several years at Notre Dame we have encouraged faculty to use Poll Everywhere instead of hardware-based response systems (clickers) for polling. If you haven’t checked out this gem in a while, then take another look. During 2015 the feature set has gone through a series of important upgrades.

A major update in January included:

• Familiar response formats – like ABC, 123, and True/False
• Ranking polls – drag and drop items into the correct order.
• Customizable heat maps and color schemes
• Testing panel – try responding using text messages or a smartphone; you’ll see exactly what the students would see.
• Presenters – embed polls in PowerPoint or Keynote on a Mac; embed a live web page in PowerPoint for Windows.
• Pricing – some plans went up, but not the educator rate.

Improved reporting rolled out in June:

• Thumbnails of each poll chart
• Engagement widget to help measure audience interaction from poll to poll
• You can quickly access archived results of several polls in one report.
• New reports include “Executive summary” (a big picture view of engagement and responses) and “Gradebook” (correct/incorrect responses, ranking, and participation)

Finally, just this month polling features were added to the PowerPoint app for iPad; just insert the add-in and off you go.