Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Mentimeter

While participating in a district professional development opportunity, I was introduced to Mentimeter. At the time Mr. Zahn (@aszahn66) was gathering data on his audience to gain insight to our understanding regarding the topic presented. Right away, I knew this was a tool my students and I would love! Over the next several months, we used Mentimeter often in our classroom as a tool. We found it to be quick, easy to use, easy to read, and would lead to additional discussions beyond the topic at hand (comparing the graph, etc).

While we were studying context clues, students watched a silly, entertaining video of a pig trying to get to some chocolate chip cookies (we had fun with this because I, too, love chocolate chip cookies and they know it). We watched just a bit of the video then made a prediction based on context clues. It was so fun and engaging! Using Mentimeter was easy and quick in the classroom. I would display the results on the board and students would answer using their iPads (answers can be submitted from any device with web access). Students loved watching the bar graphs grow as more votes were submitted, plus it is anonymous so it protected the learners and built confidence in our classroom.

When preparing to present to others, I do not always know my audience. As a classroom teacher, I know how important that is. With professional development, I use Mentimeter as a tool to assess my audience. Before getting started, participants go to the link on my slide and anonymously cast their votes. I keep the link to the results on the slide, as well, and model how to use Mentimeter before we begin. Plus, it gives me insight on how I need to adjust the information I share. There are many options for using Mentimeter. You can ask an open-ended question, gather data on a scale, create a matrix, or (as seen below) make a word cloud or bar graph:


This is a beneficial tool to use for educators and learners, as well. How can you use Mentimeter?

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