Week 4: Plickers

Image Source: https://www.slideshare.net/nadinegilkison/plickers

This week I am looking into an assessment tool called Plickers.  Plickers allows you to quickly assess your students knowledge through multiple choice questions. Plickers work similarly to the clicker response systems that were very popular when SMART Boards first came about.  Students respond to multiple choice questions by choosing the letter of the correct answer, and the resulting data is immediately displayed for the teacher.

The advantage of Plickers is the elimination of expensive clickers by using paper cards, called “Plickers,” that work like QR codes. Each student is assigned a Plickers card with a unique pattern, and he or she uses the same personal response card all year to answer questions posed by the teacher. After a question is presented, the students respond by holding up their unique Plicker, and the teacher scans the cards with a mobile device. The results appear instantly for the teacher to view.

So how does the app recognize the student responses? Depending on which way a student holds the plicker image determines the response to a question you create within the app or Plickers website.

Image Source: https://www.lauracandler.com/plickers-101-digital-exit-tickets/

Plickers is a free App that you can can download to your device, just do a quick search in the App Store.  After you download the App, you simply go to www.Plickers.com and register a free account.

Here is a tutorial video by Blair Lambert to walk you through setting up an account and creating a class on the Plickers website:

The Plickers company recommends buying their matte laminated cards, or printing your own on card stock, by going to their website and downloading the free Plickers PDF Cards.   You can try laminating your own, but if it’s a normal laminator the light reflection will make it hard for your device to scan the cards. Another option is to purchase these matte laminated Plickers cards from Amazon.  

I obtained the large majority of my information about Plickers from Laura Candler.  In addition to a page about why to use Plickers, she wrote another page dedicated to how to use Plickers in the classroom.  She explains ideas from choose your own adventure stories to cooperative learning activities. You can check out her website here: https://www.lauracandler.com/innovative-strategies-for-plickers/

Resources:

https://www.lauracandler.com/plickers-101-digital-exit-tickets/

https://www.thepespecialist.com/plickers/