Plickers is a free mobile app that can be used solely with a mobile device or with a mobile device and web browser. Much like Kahoot, Plickers is a formative assessment tool that teachers can use to poll students, review content or hold practice quizzes. Unlike Kahoot and other digital quiz platforms, Plickers does not require students to have a device. When you input your class roster, each student is assigned a unique QR code that the teacher simply prints out. These QR codes can be taped to a notebook or laminated by themselves for quick and easy access. When it is time to use them, students simply rotate their QR code so the answer they want (A, B, C or D) is pointing up when they hold it. To collect the data, the teacher scans the room on the app with their mobile device camera which instantly collects and scores the responses. This is a great resource for schools that do not have easy access to student chromebooks or tablets, and you do not have to wait for everyone to log on- saving precious time. Responses appear anonymous to the students when they see the results on the smartboard, but the teacher is able to see correct and incorrect responses immediately on their device and look more closely later if they wish.
Pros of Plickers:
-Only need one mobile device
-Quick to access (no logging in)
-Automatically and instantly graded
-Free
Cons of Plickers:
-Questions need to have been made ahead of time
-Only multiple choice questions
plickers.com for website, or search “plickers” at the AppStore.
I had originally planned to make a post on Quizizz (now known as Wayground), an app that my school has started integrating into lessons as a way to formatively assess students (and very similar to Plickers). Now my comment is definitely late to the party, and I am aware that this post was made about five years ago, but it did get me wondering whether this platform has changed since this post was made. The general purpose of Plickers still appears to be central and I believe there haven’t been new updates and the IOS app store shows the last update as being in 2021. As one of the cons was “questions need to have been made ahead of time”, it’d be really interesting to see whether or not AI could come in and generate questions tailored for individual students. As Wayground is a bit newer on the market, it’s been able to incorporate AI to help generate and modify assessment questions. It’d be interesting to know whether anyone has used Plickers recently and whether they feel it has kept up with newer assessment platforms.