Plickers is one of the most popular new tools that I showed off in my workshops this summer. Plickers uses a teacher’s iPad or Android tablet in conjunction with a series of QR codes to create a student response system. Students are given a set of QR codes on large index cards. The codes are assigned to students. Each code card can be turned in four orientations. Each orientation provides a different answer. When the teacher is ready to collect data, he or she uses the Plickers mobile app to scan the cards to see a bar graph of responses.
Plickers version 2.0 is going to be available later this weekend (Plickers will be offline on Saturday afternoon the team pushes the updates). One of the key features of Plickers 2.0 is that it will work even if your mobile device is offline. The data you collect while offline will be stored in the app and synced to your online Plickers account when you reconnect to the Internet. Plickers 2.0 will allow you to use questions across multiple classes by reusing questions from your question library. A new “live view” will be available in Plickers 2.0. The live view will let you display questions and answer choices and share real-time results while scanning student responses.
Applications for Education
Earlier this summer I outlined three ideas for using Plickers in classrooms. Those ideas are listed below.
1. Quickly taking the pulse of the class. Ask your students, “do you get this?” (or a similar question) and have them hold up their cards to indicate yes or no. You can do this with a saved class or a demo class in the app.
2. Hosting a review game. Create a series of questions in your saved Plickers class. To conduct the review have students hold up their cards to respond to each question. Every student gets to respond at the same time and you get to see how each student responded. This is an advantage over many review games in which only the first student to respond has his or her voice heard.
3. Take attendance. In a saved Plickers class each student has a card assigned to him or her. At the start of class just have them hold up their cards to check-in.
