Poll Everywhere

I mentioned in a previous post that we are using Poll Everywhere as a part of our current Wednesday Night series "You Fill in the ________________." It is basically an online service that allows you get audience response through text message response to polls and/or questions.

For example, Wednesday Night, our topic was "Entertainment". We ran 2 different polls on the night where students could respond...

We were able to put the polls on the screen and students could watch live as the votes came in.

The other way you can use Poll Everywhere is to have people text in their Responses.




We also used this feature so students could submit questions concerning the topic through the night. At the close of the night, we took time to answer some of the following questions that were submitted...


There are varying plans you can get, but at a certain level, you are able to moderate your responses before they show up on the screen.


Here's why I love it:

1. It's interactive - It helps move the audience from observer to participant.
2. It's user friendly - The expense is low. The voting device is already in the audience members hand. The online setup is very easy.
3. It allows for feedback - It was awesome watching how students responded knowing that we were going to be answering their questions at the end.
4. It take an enemy to our program and makes it a friend - Cell phones are very annoying on Wednesday Nights. Having them ring in the middle of worship, students texting, listening to music on them, etc. This allows us to take the distracting object and use it to our advantage. Some might say that it will only make students more tempted to use their phones for other purposes. Well, I take that as a challenge to make the night so stinkin' interesting that they don't want to text their friends.

Thanks to Seth Bartlette for discovering this and using it at 3DYC this year.
As I said, there are varying levels of plans you can get, from a free setup that allows for up to 30 responses per poll to a $1,400 a month plan that allows for 20,000 responses per poll and 50 account users.