This is the 2nd in a series “12 Apps of Christmas”

1. Hemmingway App
2. PollEverywhere

PollEverywhere

If you do any presenting you owe it to yourself and your audience to know about PollEverywhere.  PollEverywhere gives you  options for live audience participation and displaying responses right in your slide deck. (with a working internet connection-so always have a backup plan!)

I’ve posted details about this previously and have included them below.

Here are some of the reasons I chose Poll Everywhere:

• Cost:The free account allows up to 40 responses per question/poll which is probably plenty in most cases…especially for me. You can check the official pricing here.
• No hardware required: Another great benefit is that your audience can respond using their phone via text message, twitter or the web.
• Easy setup*: It’s pretty easy to create your poll questions and each question comes with a downloadable PowerPoint file which you can use as is, or copy/paste into your own slide deck.

A few things you should know before you try it:

• You’ll need an internet connection to see the real-time updates. So test your connection in advance and always have a back up plan. I did an online survey of the same poll questions in advance and had that data as a backup. It also helped confirm what type of responses I could expect in the session.
• Although it is easy to setup, their default instructions for participants that are included on the downloadable slides are a bit confusing. I made up my own version, which seems to work well.

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I’ve had a  “royal” request for a job aid so stay tuned for that.

UPDATE: Here is the first attempt at a quick job aid for using Poll Everywhere in your presentation.