Plickers...are the next best thing to clickers in a classroom and they are free! I think the free margin makes them better then clickers actually, but that could be easily argued.
Plickers are basically paper clickers using a qr code. They are numbered so that student responses register to a given name or number (you decide). You must sign-up online, but then you can download the app (either android or ios) for FREE! You pose a question or enter a question online or on your tablet and the students hold up their given plicker based on the answer that they want to give you. The plicker is labeled with a, b, c, and d for choices. The student holds their plicker up toward you with the correct answer label held toward the top. When students have chosen their answers you scan the room with your tablet and the camera will read the qr codes of each student and organize it into a bar graph or a grid where each student is represented. It is that easy! The only difference between clickers and plickers I have found so far is that the clickers usually come with a computer program that will allow the students responses to a few questions to be averaged to make a grade. The plickers program does not have that quite YET, but the site says it is coming.
Anyways go to www.plickers.com to sign up for your very own FREE class and get a set of plickers to get started.
I plan to utilize plickers the most in my classroom during pretest and exit slips. I love the fact that it saves the information for the given questions so that you can go back to each question and see how the entire class or individual students answered.
An easy way to begin was as an agree or disagree question and I also asked the students to reflect on how they felt about the unit we just finished in math. If they had a great grasp on fractions they showed me the letter A, if they needed help they showed me the letter B. The result immediately showed me 15 students were comfortable and 5 students felt they still needed help.
Go ahead try it!! Let me know how it goes!
Dana :)
