Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere
In-class polling can be a powerful and flexible tool for teaching and a great way of increasing student participation and connection with cohort of any size
How can in-class polling be used?
In-class polling enables simple and easy one-to-many dialogue and can enhance students' active learning, participation, and improve learning outcomes especially in large classes or classes taught in online or hybrid modes. In-class polling can be incorporated into lectures and online classes to increase student participation, which can have a strongly positive effect on learning outcomes when used as a part of an active learning strategy, whether it be peer or cooperative learning, debates, or other activities.
Watch the video to see Dr Tom Hiscox using Poll Everywhere in first year Biology
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Use in-class polling effectively
Learn how to design effective poll questions, which address a specific learning goal, concept, or skill.
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Create a Poll Everywhere activity
Learn how to create different types of Poll Everywhere poll questions, which are referred to as activities.
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Import questions to Poll Everywhere
Learn how to bulk import questions using a .csv file into Poll everywhere as polling activities.
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Integrate Poll Everywhere with Moodle
Learn how to sync your Moodle unit with PollEverywhere. Once synced you can use the Course Management features to sync poll results to Moodle Gradebook, if grading is enabled.
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Share polls with your team
Learn how to add team members, share polls across team members, which can be presented by any member of the team.
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Insert poll questions into presentation slides
Learn how to insert your Poll activities into your Microsoft PowerPoint or Google slides.
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Enable grading
Learn how to enable grading for multiple choice and clickable image questions.
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View Poll Everywhere reports
Learn how to export reports that display a list of participants and how well they scored during your poll.
Frequently asked questions
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Expand the accordions below to view frequently asked questions about Poll Everywhere.
Presenting polls
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No, it is not possible to activate multiple activities at the same time however you can use the survey type activity to combine multiple poll questions into one activity. The survey type activity allows you to combine the following question types: MQC, word cloud, Q&A, clickable image, open-ended text and ranking.
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Activate opens the activity for responses, allowing students to respond to your Poll. Present will present your poll question in full screen mode and activate the poll at the same time. There may be instances where you want to activate the poll for students to respond to but do not need to present it at the same time, for example a poll you have embedded in Moodle for students to respond to throughout the week to collect topics to be discussed in a tutorial.
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Yes, you can edit poll activities while they are activated. However, it is recommended that you finalise your poll question before sharing it with students to avoid causing confusion.
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No, the timer countdown will only show on the presenter’s screen and lock the poll when the timer runs out. Usually, the presenter would usually be sharing their screen so respondents should see the timer on the shared screen.
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PollEverywhere can display a countdown timer on questions when you present them, however there are no settings to restrict poll questions to a specific time or day. You can restrict poll activities by locking and unlocking them, which prevents any further responses. Responses are also locked when the timer ends.
For different tutorial groups that will use the same poll, ensure that the poll activity has been shared with your teaching team. Any members added to the team can present the poll. They should then lock the poll to prevent students outside their tutorial group from responding and then clear the poll results to reset the poll question for the next tutorial. The results for each run can be viewed using Poll Everywhere reports.
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Unfortunately, PollEverywhere activities do not allow other users to respond to participant responses.
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From students' point of view, it's essentially the same thing and takes them through the same login flow.
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When you insert an activity slide into your presentation you’ll notice the title of your activity and a URL in the slide notes. It is important that you do not delete or alter this text link. This URL tells the Poll everywhere presentation app to show your activity, and where to find it.
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When the self-registration feature is disabled, presenters will need to pre-register their participants for them to respond. This can be done either by importing your class list from your Moodle site, or by uploading a spreadsheet of participants.
Instructors can import their course rosters from Moodle into Poll Everywhere. This automatically registers each student as a Poll Everywhere participant. Otherwise you can pre-register participants by importing a list from a spreadsheet via the Participants tab.
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No, responding via text messages are only available for multiple choice, word cloud, open-ended questions only.
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There may be a few reasons why an activity doesn’t accept text message responses. Firstly, it is important to remember that only Multiple Choice, Word Clouds, and Open-Ended activities can accept text message responses. If you have any other activity type, or a Survey, then text responses will not work. You also need an Australian number set up and have the activity activated.
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Yes, make sure you have the proper country's (i.e. Australia) phone number displayed for texting. You can change your text message coverage area by visiting the International text messaging page.
Creating poll activities
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For poll questions that exceed the character limit and cannot be amended to fit within 255 characters or fewer, it is recommended that you upload a screenshot or image of the information. For example, if you have a long and complex maths poll question, use a short title to indicate general information, ensure that the title is short and meaningful, then insert an image of the full problem for the student to refer to in their response.
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No, Poll Everywhere will automatically adjust the image size to fit the size/aspect ratio as the display screen. It is recommended that you adjust your image size before uploading it to Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere recommends a minimum 800px width and height (the aspect ratio will be retained regardless of file size).
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You can enable grading for Multiple choice and clickable image activities (guide). Once points have been assigned to correct questions and participants have completed the poll, you can view and export participant scores for one or multiple poll activities to a CSV. or to the Moodle gradebook (guide).
Note: You should add the PollEverywhere external tool to your unit to register all students for a PollEverywhere account, then to ensure that your activities are set to "Restrict to registered participants only" so students can only respond to questions when logged in (guide).
Sharing polls across teams
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Yes, on the Activities page, place a checkmark next to the Activities. Then click the Change owner button. You can then select the name or email you want as the new activity owner.
Please note: Once you transfer ownership of activities, you will no longer have access to them.
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You can share PollEverywhere activities with users in your team. This allows you to present the same poll activities, however you will not be able to edit or change the poll question unless you make your own separate copy. For more information, see Sharing polls with your team.
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Yes, as long as the activities they are trying to run reports on are shared with the team - you can find the instructions for it here (guide).
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Reports can't really be combined in any way - the best bet is usually to create the reports as all the same type, then download and combine them into one document.
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You can share PollEverywhere activities with users in your team. This allows you to present the same poll activities, however you will not be able to edit or change the poll question unless you make your own separate copy. For more information, see Share polls with your teaching team.
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Ensure that all colleagues who you would like to present the poll activities have been added as team members and that the poll question has been shared with the team. Your team members will also need to have enabled the PollEverywhere integration for PowerPoint/Google Slides and be logged in in order to present the polls in your shared slides.
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Monash users must have first logged into Poll Everywhere at least once to appear in the system.
Reports
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You can view reports for PollEverywhere activities using the PollEverywhere reports (guide). You can then filter the report by the presenter of the poll.
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Yes, in the reports there is a column for the correctness percentage and if a user has responded/attempted a poll question.
Attendance location tracking
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No. It doesn’t store or share any location data. It will, however, show participants their own latitude and longitude for troubleshooting purposes. This location data is only stored on participants’ own devices.
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Yes. Location check-in is not required for participants to respond to activities, but they will receive a 0% attendance score if Attendance Management is enabled and they participate in an activity without checking in.
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No. Once Attendance Management is enabled, all your saved locations will be active for all of your polls and activities.
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Yes. Presenters can create up to 10 locations to track in-person attendance.
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No. Presenters can choose any location on a map without needing to be physically present at that location.
Supporting your students
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Get students familiar with the tool
Students need to familiarise themselves with new polling tools so time must be set aside to assist students with the technology before it is used for assessment purposes. Ensure students bring a device that supports the technology to not exclude participants. Use the same educational technology throughout the teaching period to minimise the cognitive load of learning multiple systems.
Explain to students the why and how
Explain to students the purpose of the polling activity and how to measure success. Incorrect answers add depth to the discussion and an opportunity to correct misconceptions.
Use polling as an alternative form of communication
Polling may also be used as an alternative form of communication within a synchronous lesson. Students can ask questions and upvote questions that they want answered. A moderator can read the upvoted questions to the lecturer to answer during class discussions. Providing additional means to communicate empowers students who may be more reluctant to raise their hand and ask a question.
What resources and services are available to students
You can share these guides with your students in the first class, so students have time to register, create an account if needed, and participate in in-class polling.
PollEverywhere: The student’s guide to getting started with Poll Everywhere
A short guide for students on how to create a participant account, install the app and phone number certification.
Related resources
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Poll Everywhere is Monash university's licensed polling tool. Zoom is also capable of running in-meeting polls. There are also a few free polling tools you could explore. Consider the table below to decide which tool best fits your needs.
Poll Everywhere (guides) | Zoom | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
License | Monash supported | Monash supported | Free option | Free option | |
Brief description | Real-time polls with a number of different response options | In-meeting polls with multiple question types | Interactive polling tool with multiple question types and visualization options | A game-based learning tool that assigns points for correct answers as well as quick responses | |
Student access | Students respond using a range of digital devices and platforms | Students respond in- meeting | Students respond by entering in a unique code at menti.com | Students respond by entering in a unique code at kahoot.it | |
Primary use cases for teaching | Ice-breakers, gauge student comprehension, solicit open-ended feedback | Ice-breakers, quick checking of learning, gamification of learning | |||
Questions | Multiple Choice | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Word Cloud | ✔ | no | ✔ | Paid version | |
Open-ended | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | Paid version | |
Q&A with upvote | ✔ | no | ✔ | no | |
Rank order | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | no | |
Clickable images | ✔ | no | ✔ | no | |
Unique features | Set up teaching teams, import students, competition mode, live moderation, Powerpoint/ Google Slides integration | Polls can be used as a quiz with correct/incorrect answers. Meeting co-hosts can also add polls. | Use directly in PowerPoint presentation | Embed videos in questions, leaderboard, background music, automated user alias | |
Potential challenges | Each poll must be reset individually | Only the latest launched poll results are included in the poll results report | Free version does not include import options, student responses are anonymous | Free version limits participant numbers to 8 | |
The following resources provide additional support for how to apply the use of polling tools in different teaching contexts.
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Collaborative learning
Use collaborative activities to effectively develop and assess skills, knowledge and attributes.
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Feedback
Provide effective feedback within formative and summative assessment to improve student outcomes and learning.
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Feed Forward
Feed Forward as a tool to enable you to evaluate students’ experiences of teaching in a unit. This will give you immediate feedback from students about their teaching and learning experiences.
Education Performance Standards Framework
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The Education Performance Standards identify the expectations of education practice at Monash – See the Education Performance Standards for more details.
Impact on student learning | Impact on educational knowledge | Impact on educational environment | |||||
Effective teaching and learning | Responsive program design | Student- centred orientation | Professional learning engagement | Pedagogical content knowledge | Education research performance | Education innovation | Education leadership |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
You could address these Practice Elements by providing evidence of how you:
- Demonstrated ability to use engaging and active approaches to teaching and learning through the use of polling tools
- Demonstrated contributions to development of activities, units and courses in line with current best practices, for example create engaging online synchronous polling activities
- Demonstrated contributions to support positive student learning experiences in practice, for example create Zoom drop in sessions or schedule support meetings with your student to discuss feedback
- Utilised polls to gauge student understanding of concepts and adjusted teaching practices accordingly