Mentimeter

Mentimeter is web-based, so you can create presentations online with their easy-to-use editor. You can add questions, polls, quizzes, slides, images, gifs and more to your slides to create fun and engaging presentations. Once students have completed the polls, they will be able to visualise their responses.

Once your Mentimeter presentation is over, you will be able to share and export your results for further analysis and even compare data over time to measure the progress of your audience.

Accessing Mentimeter

Mentimeter can be used and accessed via numerous platforms:

1. Menti website – Create and manage presentations directly via the Mentimeter website.
2. Blackboard LTI – Access Mentimeter within Blackboard for use in your teaching environment.
3. Powerpoint – You can use the ‘add in’ feature to incorporate Menti questions in your PowerPoint presentations.
4. Microsoft Teams –Integrate Mentimeter into Teams to run interactive activities live.

Collaborate in Mentimeter

You can invite collaborators to work together and edit your presentations simultaneously. To set up, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk with the name you would like to call your group and the staff you would like in the group. Guidance for inviting collaborators can be found here: Collaborate on presentations with friends and colleagues.

Asynchronous activity ideas

Students/users participate in an activity over a period of time, during which they input and can see their and other peoples’ responses.

Word Cloud

A word cloud is a great way to build up ideas over a specific period of time. The mentimeter slide can be embedded into the course on Blackboard. This was used in the Digital Design courses which started running in 2020.

Scales

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A scale is a great way to map confidence levels of your students. You can ask them to complete these before and after your teaching, to see how their confidence levels changed. This was used in the Digital Design course, as well as the Digitally Ready course with was aimed at students. We included two of these polls in the assessment section. By seeing where students confidence levels were for different categories we were able to ascertain where we should be directing our time in building assessment guidance.

Open ended

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The open-ended feature in Mentimeter allows students to input a free text response. This is a great way to collate information before a session that can be discussed all together. The answers can be displayed in a flowing grid which allows for a large amount of responses.

Accessibility

Make your activities more accessible by:

• Checking the contrast between the text and background colours you pick to ensure it is sufficient.
• Adding descriptive captions to images you add.
• Choosing understandable headings, labels, etc.
• If you are embedding the activity, make sure you also provide a link to it.

You may also want to look at Mentimeter Accessibility Statement.

Getting an account

There are two ways to get a Mentimeter account. You can use this link: www.mentimeter.com/join/bristol-university which will get you set up straight away and send you an introductory email. Alternatively, if you have further questions about Mentimeter you can contact us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk where we can provide you with further information on how to get set up.

Students can join through the browser at menti.com to contribute to polls.

Getting the Mentimeter PowerPoint plugin

While it is possible to upload your Powerpoint presentation to Mentimeter and add questions, if you want to add Menti questions to a presentation, it is advisable to first open Powerpoint on your desktop and then use the Mentimeter plugin to add questions directly to it. To add the Mentimeter as an Add-in Get the plugin from the Microsoft App Store. When signing in please use the email address you use to sign into Mentimeter with, and the company name will be ‘Bristol University’.

When using the plug-in you will find it under Add-ins under the home tab. The icon will be on the top right of the control panel. The Menti plug-in guidance explains how to use the plug-in.

Please note that Mentimeter is not compatible with the online version of Powerpoint.

Moderation

You can control what appears on the screen during a Menti presentation by using Mentimote. It is particularly useful when running open-ended questions as it includes moderation features that enable you to review responses before they appear on screen. You can then approve, hide, or delete submissions to help ensure that only appropriate content is shared with participants. You can find more information on Mentimote on their help pages.

Syncing Mentimeter with the Gradebook provides an additional way to manage and monitor participant contributions. Through the Mentimeter LTI integration, which is available in Blackboard, Mentimeter presentations can be linked directly to the Gradebook. This enables you to track attendance, participations and quiz results. As responses are associated with an individual, contributions are no longer anonymous providing greater accountability. Our guidance on using the Mentimeter LTI in blackboard will help you through the process of setting it up.

Help & Guidance

We've included some useful hints, tips and guides to get you started with Mentimeter. See how to use Mentimeter in Blackboard. You can find more information on their help pages.

If you have any questions about the Mentimeter, please send an email to digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.