Plickers

I am obsessed with Plickers at the moment!

Every so often I come across a free teaching resource i am always excited to try out, recently this has been Plickers. I first saw an advert for it on Facebook, and one day i finally got round to reading more about it and haven’t looked back since.

Plickers is an interactive answering system, where pupils are each given a small card with a shape on it (kind of like a QR code) the card is unique to each pupil and on it has the letters a,b,c and d. What you as a teacher does is create in advance, or on the spot, some questions. On the website you display them on the screen and then the pupil puts the answer they think it is facing up. You then have an app on your phone or tablet you use to scan the room, the answers are instantaneously on the board in a graph form! (you can so pupils individual answers on the big screen, but i feel that defeats the purpose).

This is basically like having show me boards, but it takes away all the kids copying each other or laughing at the kid that put the wrong answer up. It can be used to check understanding but also, I have put it up midway through a lesson to see how pupils are understanding the task so i can target support. It can be used as a starter, a plenary a mid way point.

You only need one class set as one number can be given to several pupils in different classes. I am going on a trip to Ikea next week to stock up classroom supplies and one of the things I am going to get is a back of the door shoe storage holder to store my Plickers cards. This way pupils can get in the habit of picking up their Plickers card on the way in the room, in case we want to use them that period.

This blog post does not do the resources justice, i feel it will revolutionize my teaching practice. Watch some Youtube Video‘s or go on the website  and try it for yourself!

As I told my pupils and colleagues and husband (who reluctantly had to listen to me go on about it!) The Future Is NOW!