Plickers

I’ve used Plickers for the last few years to quickly target students through my math class for intervention classes that I teach for the last couple of periods of my day. I could look at daily results to have a close to real-time look at the progress of my students as well as un-check questions that didn’t assess students to my liking as I looked over my data. This used to be a very quick and easy undertaking, however, with update 4.0 you no longer have the option to look at a daily scoresheet without paying a steep monthly or yearly fee. Unfortunately, I can’t justify paying such a large amount if the only feature I find myself wanting is to have the option to look at results on a daily basis as opposed to a week or month at a time. I’m editing this review to include that I also agree with the frustration voiced about changes to scanning as well as the question and graph displays. Prior to update 4.0 you could adjust the text size for questions and the answer choices were a great size. Now the answer choices are too small, students toward the back are having trouble reading them and must move closer to the board which they dislike. Further, I like being able to see in real time which mistakes students are making other than just knowing they missed a question. In regards to the graph, students have already been voicing their negative opinions about how they miss the old bar graph with the count displayed above each bar so they could see it for themselves as well as that they can barely see the grayed in lines that are used in this current update.

I loved Plickers before the update. It was such an easy use of formative assessment because I could see the student data as I scanned with the answer and student name popping up. Now it just tells me they got it wrong. I like to see in real time the mistakes they are making so I can address them in our discussion about the question. Before the update Plickers had a bar graph that was a fabulous representation for the students to see and it was large enough the kids could see it from anywhere in the room. The graph included now does not visually represent the data for the students or show it large enough they can see it. Now when displayed the questions are huge but the answers are so tiny the students in the back of my room can not see them at all. The students had to move closer to the board and expressed frustration and that they no longer enjoyed Plickers. (So sad because they begged for it before) I created a set of questions on the computer and can not find it anywhere in my library. It was so much easier to manipulate before this recent update. Please fix this so I can go back to using it to glean immediately feedback for my classroom and so the kids will enjoy it again.

This is a perfect way to get a quick read on your students' understanding. Data drives my teaching and Plickers is so much easier as I deal with the tech part, and they don't have to log in or anything. The only downside is that my questions from last year that contained images won't load this year online. The questions stored in my library from last year work, but bot the attached images. Other than that- this is great!