Plickers – Student Response System

 ‘Plickers’ is a tool that allows teachers to record student answers to questions regardless of location and with only one digital device. It is a free Student Response System (SRS), useful even for those without access to one-to-one devices in the classroom. All you need are some downloadable and printable class cards, the Plickers app, and one handheld device. The students hold their cards up based on their answer (A, B, C, D), the teacher scans the cards from anywhere in the classroom using a smartphone, tablet or iPad, and the responses are automatically entered. You and the class can view a graph of responses if you connect your computer to a projector. Teachers can ask multiple choice questions or yes/no questions. NEW: Plickers now has hybrid and online mode for using plickers face to face, online (or in both modes at once!)

 

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Regular check-ins with your students during instruction aids formative assessment and future planning. Teachers often use thumbs up/down or hands up or fingers to try to gauge understanding or interest but these ‘systems’ are difficult if not impossible to track. Plickers allows you to actually save the individual student responses (and you don’t need to ‘give away’ any of your students’ information to do so).

Plickers can even be used in the gym or outdoors (be sure to download the large sized cards). Below is some 360 video footage we shot of Plickers being used in a Physical Education class:

Many teachers lack access to individual devices needed to use other student response systems (iClickers, Socrative and others). With Plickers, all you need is an app, one device and printable cards for your students. Some excellent features include (excerpts below from Plickers.com):

More information about features is available here.

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Go to Plickers.com and set up a free teacher account. When you select ‘classes’, you will be prompted to enter student names or aliases which will automatically be assigned to a plicker card number. If you teach multiple classes, you can simply create a new class and add the new students and there’s no need to have a separate set of plickers cards since the app easily lets you toggle between your classes.

You can either print your plickers cards on your own for free, or you can purchase a matte, laminated set of cards from Amazon.

Now all you need to do is think of some excellent questions – remember, the questions you ask can make or break an assessment opportunity. Think carefully about your questions. I’d also suggest having a few ‘generic’ questions (i.e. temperature checks, checks for understanding) that you can use at any time regardless of subject or content.
Plickers Instructions

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