To engage more dynamically with audiences of any size, in person or remotely, Ken uses PollEverywhere software. Participants should be encouraged to bring along their smartphone, tablet, or laptop in order to add their voice to real-time online polls, which will generate slides in Ken’s presentation. They may be asked to pick from multiple-choice responses, add some words to a word cloud, select a spot in a map or image, or write full sentences reporting on a table discussion or pair and share conversation.  The polling software allows Ken to gather hundreds of people’s responses in a matter of seconds, and helps to keep audience members involved and engaged.

Participants may want to connect to your venue’s wifi network, but the polls do not take much bandwidth so a solid cellular data signal (3G or LTE) will also suffice for them.

Prior to the session, but preferably not more than 24 hours in advance, you may want to encourage participants to find this URL in their web browser: http://www.pollev.com/eduvate

They may be asked for a screen name, but their responses will be treated anonymously on the polls.  The final results of the polls will be embedded in the PDF of the slides that is shared back with the audience.

Troubleshooting Tips

• Be sure you are entering the URL into a web browser (Safari, Chrome, Explorer) and not into a search engine (Google, Bing etc).  The page is not indexed and will likely not be found in a search.
• Be sure you have spelled “eduvate” with a “v”.
• If PollEv asks you to “join a presentation” you have spelled the URL incorrectly.
• You do not need to “log in” to PollEverywhere.

Using DumbPhones

If some participants wish to participate using SMS messages from their cellphones, instead of accessing the URL using data on their devices, they can do so (but it is far less user friendly). They enter the session by texting the one-word message “eduvate” to the phone number 37607.  PollEverywhere should reply with a welcome message.  Then they can text their answers as the questions go live. For multiple-choice questions, they must text the letter identifying the answer they wish to choose. For word cloud or sentence polls, they can text their responses. (Note that standard messaging rates from their cellular provider may apply.)