There are several ways to take polls in class and one of the most well known is Kahoot. I have gone off Kahoot entirely (even though I was never really convinced by it), as I did not like every time having to go through the familiar process of students giving themselves silly names, and then competing to see who could guess the correct answer the fastest. It didn't do me or them really any favours.
Two summers ago I completed a Dylan Wiliam-led MOOC that taught me about hinge questioning. This was an idea I've been wanting to embed into my lessons since then, but I've struggled to do it because of planning time and appropriate technology.
Meetoo could well be the appropriate technology.
What's great about Meetoo is that I don't have to close my Powerpoint mid-lesson to conduct a poll, and I don't need any expensive clunky clicker hardware either. Meetoo is a free add-in that places a new tab into Powerpoint that allows you to conduct live polls. Students can log in to Meetoo via a free app or through their browser using their phone, tablet or chrome book. As long as you're not lecturing to more than 100 students at a time, this is all free.
The students are also able to ask questions during the lesson via their devices. This is especially useful for students that don't want to ask for help verbally, or want to check a point.
There are options to enable or disable student names, and also to turn on moderation. If you're intending to use this tool for quiet students to ask questions, I would disable student names (keeping everyone blissfully anonymous), and to avoid students inserting silly comments into the feed, turn moderation on. That way you can review all messages before they are placed into the visible feed.
The polls themselves are very easy to set up and really engages the students. They need to be dispersed throughout the lesson, and with multiple choice hinge questions, each possible answer should tell you something about the way the students are thinking. However, sometimes if the answer to a question is 5, it's easy to put the other three answers as 4, 6 and 7, even if the students could never arrive at these answers. I know that it then loses all of its hinge-questioning-ness, but sometimes you just want to improve student engagement.
We had some trouble setting up the Meetoo add-in initially but IT were able to sort it out fairly quickly. I found that you aren't able to use the Meetoo polls when you project the Powerpoint using Extend Mode, which I have always prefered as I get to see one slide ahead. Instead, you have to have your presenter on Duplicate, which I will have to get used to.
Your Wifi needs to be strong as well, which for my classroom is an issue, so I've had a little trouble using it with all my students at the same time.
Overall, Meetoo is certainly something I'd like to develop more fully into my lessons - the opportunity for easier differentiation, live polls and fuller classroom discussion participation are benefits too great to ignore. Once my Wifi has been boosted, I'll be set up and ready to go.
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