View the participants’ progress by repeating the same question before and after your presentation: “mirror sorting”

Interest : You want to immediately see how your audience’s knowledge or opinion has evolved following your presentation: “mirror sorting” is the answer.

Note : Your performance will be judged in real-time by your audience.

Sequence :

How to program a mirror sorting :

• Create your question.
• Copy and paste your question screen onto the end of the presentation.
• Make sure that this 2nd question screen is correctly programmed (correct answers, etc.).
• Generate the results screen based on this 2nd question.
• On the results screen thus created, go to Settings and select “”Mirror Sorting”" in “”Chart Type”".
• Generate a new results screen.

For more details (including screen copies), visit our online help.

Evaluating each individual participant ? With PowerVote, save time on the participant lists and voting forms.

Save time and replace paper, pencil and rubber with individual MS Excel result spreadsheets. Using a quiz consisting of your scored questions and in MS PowerPoint format, launch the evaluation by having each participant vote using his/her voting keypads.

At the end of the session, PowerVote Quizz automatically transfers the results to an MS Excel folder that in turn distributes the results to detailed, individual spreadsheets (surname, first name, department, e-mail, etc., quiz score, individual question score, individual subject score, signature space, etc.).

The spreadsheets can be immediately printed and handed out to the participants.

The Excel file can then be saved for traceability.

The PowerVote Quizz functions to use:

• Importation of detailed participant lists from MS Excel.
• Creation and management of subjects.
• Use and settings of the transferable MS Excel “”individual results spreadsheets”".

For more details, see the PowerVote Quizz educational software.

Stimulate your audience with a timed challenge: the “podium“.

Create a scored quiz: add “podium” results slides.
“Podium” displays the participants (voting machine numbers or participant names) along with their scores.
You choose the number of participants desired and PowerVote Quizz ranks them from first (top) to last (bottom).
You can create as many podiums as you like, with the audience holding its breath for each new display. A great atmosphere, guaranteed!

To add a little excitement, you can limit the voting time and display an animated time keeper (a stop watch, an hour glass, a countdown, etc.) that produces some sort of sound (tick-tock, music, etc.). Each participant is thus aware of the passing time and hurries to answer the question(s), especially if you use response time as a tiebreaker!

PowerVote Quizz functions used:

• Creation of a Podium Results slide.
• Allowed voting time.
• Addition of a voting animation.
• Choice and use of a voting animation (40 video examples provided).

For more details, see the PowerVote Quizz educational software.

Compare the answers of different participant groups in order to refine your commentaries: “cross sorting”.

You would like to study the distribution of answers according to:

• The various departments of a single company.
• Age groups.
• Multiple countries or sectors.
• Participant gender.
• The answers to another question.
• etc.

Start by creating a Question slide to specify the distribution into subgroups:
Question – You work in:

• Answer 1 – The marketing department.
• Answer 2 – The sales office.
• Answer 3 – Accounting.

or
Question – You are:

• Answer 1 – Between 10 and 20 years old.
• Answer 2 – Between 21 and 30 years old.
• Answer 3 – Between 31 and 40 years old.
• Answer 4 – Over 40 years old.
• etc.

Create a following Question slide:
- Which do you prefer?

• Cakes.
• Fruits.
• Vegetables.
• Meat.

Next, create a Results slide by choosing “Cross Sorting” as the results type.
PowerVote Quizz will ask you to specify the cross-sorting question (for subgroup distribution) and the interlocking question (on which the calculation by distribution will be based).
The “cross-sorting” results will display the answers to “Which do you prefer?” with several histograms:
Answer: “Cakes”

• 20% marketing department
• 10% sales office
• 15% accounting

“Fruits”

• 50% marketing department
• 25% sales office
• 25% accounting

etc…
-> Note : 20% of participants belonging to the marketing department prefer cakes.

For more details, see the PowerVote Quizz educational software.

Calmly carry out the interactive session, by preparing with the help of a few simple tests.

A few common sense pointers…

Test the equipment: Always test the equipment beforehand, by carrying out yourself a real, if only partial, voting session. This practice run will allow you to put your finger on a host of banal technical problems that you will not have the time to deal with later during your presentation: connections, extension cords, lighting, positioning, image quality of the video projector, etc.

Timing: Be aware of the duration of your quiz (see the expert advice on this subject).
If your quiz is too long, you will overwhelm the participants and you will not have enough extra time to interrupt the session!
Your interactive presentation is too long? Then don’t hesitate to delete a few slides, in order to remain on the essential.

PC power feed:
Verify your PC’s power feed (do not attempt a session on battery) and remember to deactivate the Windows sleep mode (Control Panel / Power Management). The sudden blacking-out of the screen would be disastrous for your presentation, not to mention the potential loss of data under sleep mode.
Optimize your PC:

• Close all unnecessary programs when carrying out a PowerPoint presentation in front of an audience.
• Deactivate your screen savers, to both optimize performance and avoid sharing with the participants your holiday photos between votes!

PC positioning:
A PC placed too low can prove very tiring, even painful to use if you remain bent over for an hour. Position your PC at a comfortable height, placing it atop your PowerVote case, if need be.

Voting instructions:
Clearly indicate to your participants when the voting begins and ends.

Carefully weigh your questions : whether controversial or consensual, they should have a positive effect on your audience.

Avoid extremes, especially for interactive meetings:
Controversy (the formulation of the questions engenders the taking of conflicting positions, either for the presenter or for a portion of the audience). The too-predictable (the answers are obvious and the questions shed light on nothing of interest). Controversy will result in a loss of control and mitigate the benefits of the meeting, while too much consensus will bore and demotivate the participants.

Example: Let us imagine a meeting of average citizens, during which political questions are asked…

Questions such as:

Do you really love your country? Yes – No
Do you think about your children’s future? Yes – No
Are you worried about the future of the planet? Yes – No
Have obvious answers and do not motivate the participants.

However, questions such as:

Do you like such-and-such a party or minister? Yes – No
Are you against this project? Yes – No
Should cars (or GMOs) be banned? Yes – No
Risk splitting the audience, offending certain participants, and engendering unproductive tensions.

It is perfectly possible to ask questions on controversial subjects, while remaining nuanced and constructive.
Example: With regard to current government policy, you:

• Agree
• Rather agree
• Are without opinion
• Rather disagree
• Disagree

This type of question divides the answers into segments, allows for all opinions, and engenders a less controversial debate.

Likewise, with regard to a project or measure that already provokes conflict, one can formulate the question as follows on the same screen:

You:

1. Rather agree
2. Rather disagree

You believe:

1. That one can do better
2. That one cannot do any better

Is there another solution?

• Yes
• No

The democratic aspect of interactive voting: one must keep in mind that a well adapted interactivity mitigates the harmful influence of “”active minorities”" and allows the group to progress without masking over problems.
Indeed, as opposed to a verbal debate, which emphasizes the loudest speakers, interactive voting displays all opinions.

Set aside some time for interactivity, and plan on spending 2 to 3 minutes on each question (commentary included).

Calculate the duration of a quiz.

A question’s duration is made up of 4 sequences:

1. Lecture/understanding by the participants.
2. Voting by the participants.
3. Displaying of the results.
4. Commentary.

These 4 sequences succeed one another in most cases. However, it is also possible to not display the results, to comment on the question at a later time (by placing the results slide further on in the PowerPoint presentation), or to not display the results at all, in which case only the first two sequences are taken into account to determine the question duration.

To calculate the duration of a quiz, we recommend multiplying the total number of questions by:

• 2.30 minutes, if the questions are simple and without displays.
• 3.00 minutes, if the questions are complex and call for commentary following the displaying of their results.

A factor slowing vote reception

The main factor slowing vote reception is a large audience: a room of 100 people takes 50% longer to vote than a room of 15 people.
The cause is not technical in nature (PowerVote can receive hundreds of votes in only a few seconds); rather, it is due to the decreased receptiveness and greater inertia of a larger audience:
conversations among participants, distractions, waiting to see the others vote before beginning, etc.

Tricks for controlling quiz duration:

• Limit the voting time. To speed up the response time, you can limit the amount of time granted the participants to vote, while at the same time displaying a stopwatch. In this way, you create a certain element of stress, which will encourage the participants to vote faster.
• Take into consideration voting speed. If your quiz is scored, you can also take into consideration the voting speed of the participants in calculating and displaying their ranking.
• Organize the voting by teams. You can group your participants into teams, thereby adding an element of team building, while still being able to display the individual results.
  The regular displaying of an individual and team-based “”podium”" encourages the entire audience to participate and become involved, and, therefore, to vote more quickly.

Don’t overstep yourself. Instigate a debate that you master.

Slide show and displays.

4 common errors to avoid:

1. “Too much animation kills the presentation” and tires the audience.
2. Don’t get carried away with special effects, activities, transitions, etc. The more sober (without being austere) your presentation is, the less you distract your audience from the message you are trying to communicate.
3. “Illegible texts” to avoid: complex questions, ambiguous answers and wordiness.
4. “A terrible racket”: avoid misplaced sound effects, monotonous music, etc.
5. “A dead silence”: read your questions before carrying out the voting, announce the start and end of voting, and don’t leave your participants hanging.

The questions.

The number of questions:

• Unless carrying out a veritable examination (certification, safety exam, etc.), one must not overly fatigue or bore the participants.
• For an enlivening activity, 30 questions are the limit. For a knowledge-evaluation activity, 50 questions are the limit.
• For an interactive certification exam, test, etc., you can ask as many as 100 or 120 simple questions. Beyond that, however, you risk losing your audience’s attention and running out of time!
• Question variety.

Vary the types of questions, to avoid tiring your audience, especially in a “fun” or “light-hearted” context. PowerVote allows you to manage the following types of questions:

• Simple questioning (survey).
• Choosing the correct answer.
• Ranking the answers by preference.
• Placing the answers in correct order.

…and to display, via MSGraph pie charts and histograms, the simple results (votes received for each answer) by using:

• The number or percentage of votes for each answer.
• The votes of each participant, by providing the numbers of the answers chosen.
• The numbers of the voting machines or the names of the participants, according to the answer chosen: “”Podiums”" (the participants’ scores), “”Cross Sortings”" (vote distribution according to population), “”Dynamic Summaries”" (several results on the same slide), “”Correct Answer Rates”" (successfully answered questions).

By playing with the types of questions and results, you can capture your audience’s attention and increase the interest of your interactive presentations during the entire duration of your presentation.

Prepare a test question. This acts as an ice breaker, while familiarizing the participants with their voting keypads.

It is best not to start voting with the very first slide, especially if the participants have never before used the voting machines or if any stakes are attached to the vote (an exam, a game with prizes, etc.).
Create a test question (just for practice), to place at the beginning of the presentation, before any real voting is carried out.
The choice of question is important.

It can be humorous: What colour was Henry IV’s white horse?

1. black
2. red
3. blue
4. white

Or cultural: Who wrote The Sun Also Rises?

1. Ernest Hemingway
2. John Steinbeck
3. Henry Thoreau

Rather absurd: You are:

1. a man
2. a woman
3. unknown
4. a racoon

Or of current interest: Who was elected President of the United States in November 2008?

In this manner, you not only test the system, you also lend confidence to the audience just discovering the interactive system.

Depending on the type of question chosen, you can also add an ingredient that should not be underestimated: a certain relaxation, the guarantee of improved receptiveness on the part of the participants.

Remember to also insert, before this test question, a few slides presenting the voting keypads and method.