A survey in 30 seconds Part 1

As with just one smartphone to quickly poll the whole class? We about a year ago I wrote about a fantastic app that allows conducting frontal interviews with a single mobile phone. If the previous material was more related to news, in this article we would like to give specific instructions to any teacher any school could just start using Plickers. During the year, the app got a number of awesome features:

• there were folders to group issues;
• have the opportunity to add a picture to questions.
• functionality of the queue.

How Plickers works?

The program works on a very simple technology. Based mobile app, website and printed cards with QR codes. Each child is given one card.

Working with Plickers in the classroom

The card itself is square and has four sides. Each side corresponds to your answer (A, B, C, D), which is listed on the card itself. The teacher asks a question, the child selects the correct answer and picks up the card appropriate side up. The teacher using the mobile app scans the responses of children in real time (for reading uses augmented reality). The results are stored in a database and accessible directly in the mobile app and on the website for instantaneous or deferred analysis.

What you need to work with Plickers:

• one mobile phone the teacher running iOS or Android device with the application installed Plickers;
• a set of cards with QR codes (talk about them below);
• projector open the Plickers website in Live View. The projector is generally optional, but very useful, especially for creating the “wow effect”.
• I do not need to use Plickers
• the presence of mobile phones in children.

The cards are merely printed pieces of paper. Perfectly on cardboard, in this case, they will last longer. The printing of one set will cost in the printing 200-300, or this can be done for free on the school printer on plain paper.

Layouts cards available for download on the official website. There are 5 different sets. In any set of each card is unique and has its own serial number. This allows, for example, to issue a card to a specific student and track, if necessary, its success, making a personalized poll. If you don’t want to know the results individual student, cards can be distributed randomly.

Now available on the website sets:

• Standard (standard): one sheet of A4 fit 2 cards, for a total of 40 different cards. For 99% of schools will be enough, as the number of students is clearly less than 40.
• Expanded (advanced): same as above, only cards 63.
• Large Font (large font): answer options A, B, C, D on cards written in the large font. It is also suitable for small children who have difficulty to read small letters. But at the same time it will make more easy the chance to see the response of a neighbor.
• Large Cards (large card): same as standard set, but the cards themselves are larger and a single sheet is placed at exactly 1 card. Around 40 of them here.
• Large Expanded Cards (large card, extended range): Large Cards plus Expanded = 63 large card A4 size.
• Once again, for the usual school standard set is your optimal choice.

The interface of the web app Plickers

To start using Plickers, you must register on the site. Then the master enters the library interface. That’s what we see:

• The web interface Plickers with explanations
• Question (question) — a key unit of the system. Each question contains:
• text. It is possible to add a picture. The text should not be too long to fit on the computer screen with a large font.
• the type of response (the response options and/or the system “true/false”)
• the answers (there can be no more than four). The correct answer is highlighted with a tick.
• Folder (folder) — grouping questions on a specific topic or feature. For example, the “theory of evolution” or “linear equations”. Makes it easier to navigate the issues. You can create folders inside folders.
• Class (class) and Queue (queue). After the questions are prepared, they need to create a queue for a particular class. One question can be used any number of times in any class.
• To create a class, click on the menu “Classes” at the top and on the opened page click on the “Add new Class”.

How to create a class in Plickers

The easiest way is to call the classes by their real name: 9a, 9b, 10A, etc. If you have a division into groups, for each group it makes sense to create a separate class: 9a-1, 9a-2, and so on.

After classes are created, return to the library (the link “Library” at the top) and add questions to the queue to the desired class. To this end, the interface of question (click Expand in the lower right corner of the question) there is a button “Add to Queue”.