The Center for Teaching and Learning is running a pilot project for virtual course engagement. Engaging your class as a whole has always been a challenge, even before we moved online. It is especially difficult during Zoom classes, as the process of a student raising their hands, unmuting themselves, handling background noise and potentially unstable connections means that whole course interaction is limited at best.
We have secured a limited number of licenses for faculty to use with two softwares “PollEverywhere” and “Mentimeter.” These tools allow a faculty to have all students (instead of just a few) engage in the course through aggregate questions such as pinning data predictions on a scatter plot, word clouds where common words/phrases appear larger, and brainstorming boards with student thoughts posted together.
Personally, I find the main difference is PollEverywhere has more features, but a bit more of a learning curve, and Mentimeter doesn’t have quite as many features but is very easy to use and gives more visually appealing results. Both are powerful engagement tools that can potentially help you engage your course. A brief comparison list is here.
If you are interested in being one of the faculty collaborators in this pilot, please fill out the form below. It will include training and continuous support by the Center for Teaching and Learning and a full-version license for you to use with your courses.
https://forms.office.com/r/B1TawYdSWj
If you have any questions, or want more information please contact Rachel Stern-Lockerman at rstern@qc.cuny.edu
| Function | Mentimeter | PollEverywhere |
|---|---|---|
| Responses | Unlimited | 700 per poll |
| Question Types | Multiple Choice, Word Cloud, Open Ended, Scales, Ranking, Q&A, Select Answer, Type Answer, Assign values, 2 x 2 Grid, Quick Form, Who will win?, Pin an Image | Multiple Choice, Word Cloud, Q&A, Clickable Image, Open-ended, Competition, Donut chart, Icebreaker, Upvote, Leaderboard, Emotional scale, Presentation feedback, Spotlight, Retrospective, Assign team, Discussion, Brainstorm, Ranking, Select on map, Short answer, Bulletin board, 2×2 matrix |
| Can you make non-question slides within the system? | Yes (can also import PowerPoint Presentations) | No, but can integrate directly into PowerPoint. |
| Question Limit | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Reports and Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Functions well in… | Zoom, in-person, Microsoft Teams, Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, PowerPoint, Google Slides. | Zoom, in-person, Microsoft Teams, Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, PowerPoint, Google Slides |
| Mobile Friendly | Yes | Yes |
Image source Pixabay
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