How I use Mentimeter in my classroom (with screenshots)

I discovered Mentimeter a few years ago through a conference. Since then I’ve used it every year in my classroom. I love it because it’s interactive and it’s free! My favorite tool is the word cloud maker, but let’s back up.

Mentimeter is a free website and NO they are not paying me to promote them. I’m writing about the site because I use it and I like it.

Here’s how to get started:

Go to Metimeter.com. You’ll get a screen that looks like this:

Click on sign up and you’ll get a screen prompting you to create a free account. You can use Facebook or Google, or you can use your email to create an account.

I used “sign in with Google” which was super easy because I already have a Google account. It will then prompt you to “take a moment to let us know what you’d like to use Mentimeter for.” I checked “education” and a sub-menu popped up asking what level of education. I checked k-12.

Then just click the “GET STARTED” button at the bottom.

You’ll get a screen that looks like this:

Now it is time to create something to use in your classroom!

Like I said earlier, I love the word cloud feature. To create a word cloud click on the “New Presentation” button in the upper left. Then you will get this screen:

You can click on the blue “short tour” link for brief descriptions of the different things you can do with the platform.

One thing you need to know if you don’t take the tour is that everything you do is automatically saved.

The cool stuff is on the right hand side. There you will find all the types of interactive presentations you can give. I’m going to walk you through the word cloud option because it’s my favorite, but you would follow essentially the same steps with any of the types of questions.

So I clicked on the word cloud option under “question type” and got this screen.

In the box under where is says “Your question,” where it currently says “Word Cloud” type in what you want your students to respond with.

I teach a writing class and we spend the year talking about words one way or another, so as a get to know each other activity I have students share three of their favorite words. In the “Your Question” box I put: List 3 favorite school appropriate words. I leave entries per voter to three since I’m asking for three words, but you can change that for whatever suits your needs.

I do turn on the profanity filter. If you click on the little chevron (upside down triangle) beside “Profanity Filter” you can filter for profanities in all kinds of languages! Pretty neat. There are other options to personalize it, but that’s really all you need to do. Then just click the “Present” button in the upper right hand corner. You’ll get a screen that looks like this:

The directions are right there on the screen. Have students use their phones or computers to go to menti.com. NOTE: The code will change daily, so if you teach on an A/B schedule, the code with switch on you. Just make sure you are aware of that.

They don’t have to create a log in or share their email.

They’ll type in the code and respond to your question. Their responses will appear on the screen in real time. Responses that are repeated will get bigger. So the more times a single response comes up, the bigger the word gets in the word cloud.

Here is the word cloud that was generated by four of my classes cumulatively in response to “What are your three favorite words.” You can choose to reset it after each class. I just chose not to.

I had each student verbally share one of their words and explain why they like it.

There are so many ways you could use this tool…polls, open ended questions, multiple choice.

If you click on “Inspiration” on the opening screen there are tons of ideas. Here are some of my favorites:

As you can see, it’s a pretty cool tool and even better because it’s free. You can upgrade to get more stuff, but the free version is all I need for my classroom uses.

How do you think you might use mentimeter in your classroom?

Here are some more posts you might find helpful or to explore on your own start here.

Keeping track of parent contact

5 Snacks teachers love

5 ways to handle first year teacher stress

Survival Mode

Basic student teaching goals

Advice from students

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