Poll Everywhere

I've tried yet another tech tool to get my students talking and discussing the book they just finished: 

Poll Everywhere.

Our school has used Poll Everywhere during faculty meetings as a way to quickly get teacher feedback, but I was hesitant to try it because of my own BYOD fears. But no longer!  For my lesson, I wanted to try a similar approach to Poll Everywhere like I did with WallWisher.  I wanted to play around with the inside/outside circles for discussion.  Inside circle= live talking.  Outside circle= electronic communication.

Here's what I like about Poll Everywhere:

1.  Students with regular phones can text in responses even if they do not have a Smart Phone.
2.  The web address is SUPER easy for students to access if they do use the internet: http://pollev.com.  Simple.
3.  Responses filter on to the screen in chronological order, so kids' responses can remain more organized.
4.  Kids liked it!
5.  Many of the kids had tried Poll Everywhere in another class, so I didn't have to pre-teach much in order to use it.
6.  Students were engaged!
7.  Teachers can just go to www.polleverywhere.com and instantly create a question/prompt to gather responses.  No username and password needed!

Here's what I don't like about Poll Everywhere:

1.  At a certain point, there is a limit to how many comments can be entered.  You need to clear out the comments in order to continue.  This limits the ability to go back to earlier posts.
2.  Contrasting #7 above, if you don't make a username and password, everything you do in a session is lost when you close the window.