Most virtual meetings, webinars, and classes go like this: the speaker or teacher asks a question, looks expectantly at blank faces—or their still counterparts—and hears nothing but crickets.
Interactive online platforms aim to solve two of the biggest problems in the virtual environment: a lack of attention and engagement. Here is a list of seven options that you can use for remote meetings, online classes, random chitchat between friends, or even hosting a major event.
1. Kahoot!
Kahoot allows you to use their templates or make your own game or quiz. You can choose from a variety of question types either to test knowledge or to collect opinions. You can also customize the time limit, the points, and answer options.
You can discover kahoots made by premium partners like Disney and Marvel. You can use and host a live game or assign public kahoots for self-paced learning.
Kahoot! also allows you to create groups and collaborate with a team. It also gives you access to reports generated after each game that you can use to gain deeper insights into your audience.
The app also launched a knowledge platform called Kahoot! Academy. It is an online community and marketplace for content sharing where educators can access high-quality learning content created by verified educators and Premium partners.
2. Mentimeter
With Mentimeter, you can create word clouds, scales, ranking, and open-ended questions or make fun quizzes where you can ask the audience to write their own answers or choose from options you’ll provide.
You can also translate your presentations into your audience's language, enable profanity filters, and use Mentimote to control your presentation with a smartphone.
You can even use templates like post-conference feedback, managing expectations, and icebreakers.
Unlike other platforms, Mentimeter allows you to crowdsource questions from your audience to host an unlimited audience with a free account. However, you can only make up to two question slides and up to five quiz slides.
Other plans give you unlimited questions and quizzes and offer additional perks like branding and customization, work in teams, and advanced input options.
3. AhaSlides
You can use AhaSlides to brainstorm, make Q&A sessions, and host competitive quizzes for your workplace or class. People can follow the link or use the unique QR code to submit their votes and answers.
You can create unlimited questions, quizzes, and Q&As for up to 7 people with a free account. If you need to host more people, you can upgrade to one of their three annual plans: Essential, Plus, and Pro.
Aside from accommodating more participants, the plans come with additional features such as data export and customization.
4. Quizizz
With Quizizz, you need to sign up for an account to create and host your own quiz. You can create a quiz using checkboxes, fill-in-the-blanks, multiple-choice questions, or run polls for school or work. You can also create presentations from the website and embed Quizziz polls and questions on the slides.
If you are a teacher, you can create a class on Quizizz or integrate Quizizz with your learning management system (LMS) so that you can assign your students flashcards and quizzes, and track their progress. You can even create a custom meme set for your class for added fun!
You can make use of premade quizzes and lessons from their library, start a live quiz or use it as an assignment. You can upgrade to Quizziz Super for access to more resources, zero ads, and other perks.
Participants can engage on any device, in person, or remotely. They can learn by themselves or with a group.
Download: Quizziz iOS | Android
5. Crowdpurr
Crowdpurr allows you to set up and customize experiences like live voting and polls, multiple-choice questions, typed text-answer response, like/dislike, among others.
Crowpurr’s Projector View shows responses, rankings, and results in real-time. It can fit a wide array of display devices, from tablets to event display projectors. Crowdpurr can also be streamed on free streaming devices like Twitch and YouTube Live.
With a free account, you can make up to three experiences with 15 questions each. Each experience allows up to 20 participants.
If you want to utilize other features such as custom branding, crowd access codes, increasing the number of concurrent experiences, and creating up to 100 questions per experience, you need to upgrade to the Classroom Plan or Seminar Plan.
6. Vevox
Vevox allows you to give live polls, quizzes, Q&As, anonymous feedback, and more. It can be integrated with virtual platforms and in Microsoft Powerpoint, Word, and Teams.
A free account allows you to run basic polls, Word clouds, and Q&A for up to 500 participants.
Vevox has various plans: Business, Business Enterprise, Education, and Education Institutions. These plans vary in features like the participant count, branding, using other poll types, running surveys, getting detailed data reports, and running concurrent sessions.
7. Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere lets you choose from a wide range of activity types and visualize them in real-time. You can select from over ten types of activities with a free account, including Q&As, brainstorm, emotion scale, word cloud, and multiple-choice questions.
These activities could be shared from the web or integrated into your Google Slides, Powerpoint, Keynote, Slack, or Microsoft Teams using the Poll Everywhere desktop apps.
You can create unlimited questions for up to 25 audiences with a free account. You need to upgrade your account to use their other features, such as customizations, audience size, participant restriction, and a personalized URL.
Download: Poll Everywhere iOS | Android
For Keynote | Powerpoint (Mac/Win)| Google Slides
Make Your Sessions More Engaging!
Digital technology is rapidly transforming the world, including schools and workplaces. However, engaging and keeping your audience engaged can be somewhat challenging when conducting virtual meetings.
Counter boredom and bland presentations using interactive online platforms to make discussions and presentations more interactive, eye-catching, and entertaining.
You can create decent ones with free accounts. However, if you need more customization and upgrades, many platforms offer affordable options that may be enough to meet your virtual presentation needs.