In Weekly Reflection 1: Most Likely to Succeed, I used Mentimeter to create a word cloud of all the ideas that came up as I watched the movie, Most Likely to Succeed. This is one simple way that I can use this program in my classroom. It is often difficult for teachers to track their students’ self-reflection while they are watching movies as the writing often happens after the movie ends in individual notebooks. Mentimeter provides a space where all of a class’s responses are entered into one location, and valuable information based on time and responder are attached to each response. In this way a teacher can see when a student has what thought, and watch their class’s collective thoughts progress and evolve.
Additionally, being able to integrate interactive slides into your presentations means that there is an engagement baked into direct instruction sessions. This enhances my ability to use formative assessment as I no longer need to remember how all of my students respond to questions in class. It also provides opportunities for students to tell me that I need to slow down, anonymously.
My only concern with using mentimeter is that I cannot rely on it until I have met all of my students and know that they will reliably have access to a phone, tablet or computer in the classroom.
