Poll Everywhere Overview

Poll Everywhere is an audience engagement solution allowing presenters to create multiple-choice questions, word clouds, quizzes, and open-ended discussions their audience can respond to. It's a robust formative assessment tool for instructors and students can participate using any device with internet access, supporting both in-person and remote learning.

Enhances Engagement:Interactive activities encourage participation, including from quieter students.
Real-Time Assessment:Quickly gauge understanding and adjust lessons based on immediate feedback.
Facilitates Active Learning: Activities like polls and quizzes promote deeper understanding.
Inclusive Participation:Anonymous responses foster a more open and inclusive environment.
Simplifies Data Collection:Responses are saved and exportable for analysis and improvement.

Poll Everywhere Availability

Poll Everywhere is available to all UIW faculty and staff with a presenter account. If you're new to using Poll Everywhere, request a Poll Everywhere presenter account to get started.

Upon receiving an account, faculty and staff are classified as presenters and can create and present activities.
Students are automatically assigned participant accounts, which allow them to engage but not create activities.
Presenter accounts are not available to students.
Support is available through the PollEv Support Center or by contacting Poll Everywhere Support.
For classroom and conference room use with PowerPoint, ensure Poll Everywhere is installed or contact the UIW Help Desk.

Poll Everywhere Considerations

Access Poll Everywhere through the web app in Cardinal Apps after your account is created.
Only 255 characters in a question or any answer choice are displayed; anything longer is hidden.
Participants can respond via the web, mobile app, or text message (for certain activities).
For asynchronous teaching, gather responses using an activity Response Link.
Only one activity can be active at a time. To accept responses to multiple activities at once, use response links, which do not rely on being activated.
Share activities with colleagues by requesting a Poll Everywhere Team.
Integrate activities directly into PowerPoint without interrupting your slide deck - but tech support may be needed for classrooms and conference rooms.
If you plan to use Poll Everywhere within PowerPoint, follow our walkthroughs for PowerPoint (macOS) and PowerPoint (Windows) in preparation.
Use the Poll Everywhere Canvas integration to generate grades based on activity responses for correctness, participation, or attendance.

Types of Poll Everywhere Activities

Poll Everywhere offers various activity types to choose from:

Multiple Choice: The most popular type of activity is multiple choice. Presenters can create questions with up to five answer options and choose as many correct answers as needed.
Word Cloud: Presenters can create a question for students to answer with a single word. Their responses will form a word cloud, visually representing the most frequent answers in real-time.
Q&A: The Q&A question type allows students to submit questions the presenter can address in real-time. Participants can also upvote or downvote responses from others. This is the only activity that shows other participants' responses.
Clickable Image (Hotspot): The clickable image (hotspot) question type allows presenters to create questions with an accompanying image, where students can respond by selecting a specific area of the image. Presenters can upload images or choose from provided examples.
Survey: Surveys let presenters string multiple activities together to ask multiple questions within a single activity. They're great for quizzes, assessments, and questionnaires in the classroom.
Open-ended: Open-ended activities allow long written responses via SMS, web, or mobile app. Responses can be displayed as word clouds, text walls, clusters, or spotlights.
Competitions: Competitions are activities that let presenters link multiple activities and set limitations to encourage competition, such as allowing answer changes and setting time limits per question. Gamification and competitions are valuable in education, as they foster engagement and involvement through friendly competition.

Poll Everywhere Guides

Poll Everywhere Overview FAQ

Do students have to sign up to participate in a presenter's activities?

No. Students can participate by simply following the instructions to visit the URL and respond—no account is required.

Do I have to integrate Poll Everywhere with my Canvas course to use it?

No. Integration is only required if you want to sync grades. Otherwise, you can share your presenter URL or response link in Canvas without linking it to grading.

Can I reuse or share activities that I make?

Yes. You can reuse any activity as often as needed. To start fresh, you can clear responses without losing access to reports. If you are part of a Poll Everywhere Team, you can also share activities with teammates.

Can I take attendance with Poll Everywhere?

Yes. Poll Everywhere offers attendance tracking through geolocation. You can set up to 10 approved presentation locations. Participants not within the approved area can still respond, but they won’t receive attendance credit.