Written by Susan Armitage, a member of the Educational Development team.

Mentimeter is a way to interactively engage a group of participants either in person or online (or both!).

I use Mentimeter as a strategy to keep participants engaged in a session, particularly to quickly share views of a large group in a way that everyone can see, usually for a follow up discussion, to set up the next teaching point, or to encourage reflection on what has just been the focus of the session. 

I have also used it to gather views after a discussion, which is a quicker than going round each group/pair in turn.

For generating discussion between participants, this works equally well online (sending participants into breakout groups) or in person with small group discussion.

I have also just discovered that they have a ‘Spin the wheel’ slide, which is really useful for identifying in a fun and random way which pair or group will present or feedback next.  Previously I have used “wheel of names” for this.  Remember to select the extra option “Eliminate options to prevent repeated results” if you are using it for this purpose!

It’s easy to set up with a few ‘standard’ question types such as multiple choice, word clouds, ranking.  There are also templates available that are helpful for getting new ideas for using it.

I use the free version which has up to 34 slide types with a limit of 2 questions and 5 quizzes per presentation.  So far, I have never needed more than this.

It is well received by participants in terms of generating discussion and/or exposing the range of views within a group.  It is something that they too can use with their students which has been mentioned in feedback on sessions using Mentimeter.

To use it in a session, it has a variety of ways for participant access: the web address (www.menti.com) plus a code, a link to post in the chat if teaching online, or a QR code.

Let students know in advance that you will use this website interactively as part of your session so they can get their device ready or arrange to share with a neighbour/group.

Make the first use simple and not critical to their learning or your teaching – you can become more ambitious together as things progress and you all become more familiar with the technology

Keep it simple.  There are more advanced options and ways of using this, but for me its power is in its simplicity as a way to gather whole group views/responses and generate discussion.  Mentimeter have also collected examples of how it is used in Education.

Example provided by Susan Armitage, a member of the Educational Development team.