Creating Competitions Using Poll Everywhere

This helpsheet will talk you through how to create a competition in Poll Everywhere. Competitions are a fun new feature, introduced by Poll Everywhere in September 2018. They allow students to challenge each other to answer a series of multiple choice questions in a competition style. Students can gain points by firstly getting the correct answer and secondly, by being quicker than their peers to answer correctly.

In between each round of questions a leaderboard is shown which features the top five students.

Creating a competition with Poll Everywhere

1. Login to your Poll Everywhere account at polleverywhere.com. You will have set up your account already, if not please see helpsheet PE_010 for guidance on how to set up your account.

2. From the Poll Everywhere homepage select ‘Create’ to make a new poll. The ‘Create’ button is located to the top left of the screen.

3. Along the top of the next page, you will see the most popular question types from Poll Everywhere users. Select ‘Competition’ from the list.

4. Enter a title for your competition and write your first question. At the current time, competitions can only be created using multiple choice questions. You can add more answers to your question by pressing the plus icon below the final answer.

5. Mark which of your answers is correct for your question by clicking the tick icon next to the appropriate answer. It will go green to show you have selected it.

6. Use the ‘Select a question type’ dropdown next to the following question to add another question to your competition.

7. Repeat steps 4 – 6 until you have added all of your questions to the competition.

8. When you are ready to create your competition, press the blue ‘Create’ button.

9. You will now be taken to the presentation screen for your competition. Here you can make some changes and fine tune the settings for your competition.

Use the menu at the top of the screen to edit a question or add more questions. To edit a question make sure you first select that question in the left hand list and then press ‘edit’.

Using the ‘Competition Settings’ on the right hand side of the screen you can:

Restrict participants. If you know you wish to use this competition only with students who have registered accounts, select this option. However, most students will not have registered accounts and it is easier to access a competition directly on the web.

Allow students to change their answers. If you wish to allow students to change the answer they have given, please ensure this option is ticked. If it is not ticked then a student will not be able to change their answer after they have given it.

Timed responses. You can decide if you wish to give students a specific amount of time to respond to a question. The time they are given is automatically calculated by Poll Everywhere depending on the content of the question. If you don’t not select this option, the question will end when you manually move onto the next question in the competition.

Finally, you can use the menu above on the right hand side, to clear all results and/or delete your competition completely. Remember, if you clear all results they will not be retrievable afterwards. As with all poll types, a competition is cumulative, so each time you use it without clearing responses the new responses will be added on top of any already received.

10. When you are ready, click the ‘Polls’ button in the top navigation button to return to your list of polls. Your competition will be automatically saved.

Using a competition with your students

When you are ready to use a competition with your students, you can follow the below guidance to make the competition available and deliver it as part of your session.

1. Login to your Poll Everywhere account at polleverywhere.com.

2. Locate your chosen competition in the list of polls on the main screen. You may have grouped your competition with some other polls, if not it will appear in the ‘Ungrouped’ category. When you find it, click the name of the competition to continue.

3. You will be taken the presentation screen which you may remember from the first half of this helpsheet.

From this screen you can make any final changes to your competition if you wish. Please see step 9 on the first half of this helpsheet for guidance.

Once you have reached this screen you are ready to use your competition. You can return to your session and deliver it in the usual way.

4. When you are ready to start your competition, click the ‘Play’ button at top of the screen.

5. Your competition will open in full screen mode and you are ready to begin.

Please note: The URL you see at the top of the screen is the URL to which students will need to navigate in their web browser on a laptop, tablet or mobile device.

6. Firstly, your students will be asked to enter their name. This is what will be shown on the leaderboard during the competition, so please advise your students accordingly.

7. To move between sections of the competition you should click the screen.

Firstly, you will see each question appear on screen. You may wish to keep the question on screen for a few moments to give your students time to think about it.

The next screen will show the answers and the amount of time students have to respond. This timer will count down and students need to respond before the time runs out or they will get zero points for that question.

Once you move to the next screen you will see the student’s responses and the correct answer will be highlighted.

    On the next screen you will see the leaderboard based on answers to the first question

     Continue moving through the competition asking your questions. You will see that depending on the answers given, the leaderboard will change.

Once you have asked the last question, you will see a final leaderboard screen. Confetti will be shown on screen next to the name of the winning student.

8. When you have finished your competition, press the ESC key on your keyboard to return to the edit screen. You can now exit as you have completed your poll and return to your teaching session.