‘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!)
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):
2. Individual Student Reports: On the left panel of Scoresheet, you can now easily print individual student reports or save them as a PDF. The first sheet provides an overall class average and lists the 3 most commonly missed questions for you to save for your records, while the remaining pages contain individual student reports including the question and answer choice selected.
More information about features is available here.
Plickers Instructions