Updates to Mentimeter

As we conclude 2023, we wanted to do a quick round-up of our Mentimeter news from the year. We’d also like to remind staff that we have a campus-wide license for Mentimeter, which anyone can sign up to.

This year we have seen our biggest surge of users on Menti, jumping to just under 2000 on our campus-wide license, and another 1000 still using their free accounts. We’ve had some great feedback from staff and students on their use of Menti and are looking forward to hearing about more best-practice examples in 2024.  

Below we have noted down some Menti news and new features that we thought users may find useful. As ever, if you have any questions about using Mentimeter, please contact the Digital Education Office. 

Menti Academy 

Mentimeter have developed a series of online self-paced courses for users to complete as part of their continued professional development (CPD). You can improve your presentation skills while at the same time learn more about using Mentimeter in your teaching and training. We have added a number of these courses to the Develop website so you can keep all your CPD in one place.  

Menti app in MS Teams  

You can now share your Mentimeter presentations directly in a Teams meeting without having to switch to a browser. Participants can also interact with your presentation in the meeting window, instead of having to go to Menti.com and enter a code. 

Image taken from mentimeter.com

 

More information about adding the app to Teams, presenting and participating can be found on this ‘Mentimeter for Microsoft Teams’ page. 

New functionality in Mentimeter

Gifs 

You can now add gifs to your presentations as well as images. This is a great add on to graphs and makes results look fun and engaging. Users can learn more about how to do this by going to this Mentimeter website page. 

Segmentation analysis

If your presentation contains several multiple-choice questions, you can use the segmentation function to display results grouped by how participants answered a previous question. Segmentation of results can be useful for spotting trends in responses. 

More information about using the segmentation functions can be found on this ‘Segmentation of votes’ page. 

Image showing how segmentation works in Mentimeter

Image taken from mentimeter.com

Participants voting on openended questions

You can now allow participants to vote on responses given to open-ended questions. Participants can post their responses as usual, then they can vote on each other’s submissions.  

More information about enabling the voting function can be found on this ‘Open ended questions’ page.

Mentimeter – campus wide licence 

You can easily move your free account over to our campus wide licence by going to our website page. Please ensure your UoB email matches your Mentimeter email exactly before you upgrade. You can change your email in Menti by going to the profile icon in the top right of the Mentimeter home page and clicking on Settings. 

If you have any further queries about using Mentimeter, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk 

 

DEO supports the development of student digital capabilities 2022/23

The Digital Education Office (DEO) will be piloting a new tool to support the development of student digital capabilities in 22/23. The Jisc Digital discovery tool provides students with opportunities to reflect on skills, identify areas for improvement and be directed to the support and help they need for their time studying, as well as with any future life or career endeavours. As an institution, the tool will enable us to map existing support for digital capabilities and discover gaps in our provision. This project will be led by the Student Digital Learning Experience team within the DEO.

Students can keep up to date with the project by subscribing to our student-facing DigiTalk blog. The Student Digital learning Experience team are also developing resources, such as our Digitally Skilled video series, which are based on the Jisc digital capability framework, and can be found on our Student Support Learning Online page.

If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Fix for PowerPoint polling not opening in TurningPoint

Some TurningPoint users may have been aware that PowerPoint Polling has been greyed out and unavailable when opening TurningPoint. This can be resolved by setting a repair in the Microsoft applications. Please complete the following steps. You may need to restart your computer.

  1. Click the Windows Icon (the four small squares in the bottom left of your screen)
  2. Click Settings Cog
  3. Click Apps
  4. Scroll down until you reach Microsoft Office 365 Apps for Enterprise – en-us
  5. Select this with a single click
  6. Click Modify
  7. When prompted click Yes
  8. When prompted select Online Repair, and then click Repair. You may have to restart your computer after the repair process is complete.

Most staff on laptops should be able to apply this fix. Those on desktops may require admin rights in which case IT Services would need to be notified to assist in running the fix. Please quote Incident# 61639 in your ticket to IT services.

Helpful hint

A helpful hint when using PowerPoint polling in TurningPoint is to set TurningPoint to open when you open PowerPoint. Complete the following steps.

  1. Open TurningPoint.
  2. Click on the Settings, which is the cog icon in the bottom right of the screen.
  3. Select Software.
  4. Under application, ensure ‘Add-in always loaded’ is checked.
  5. Select Close.

If you have any questions, please contact the Digital Education Office: digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

New staff development webinar: How to effectively use Mentimeter Pro in your teaching

Mentimeter has been a popular tool for interaction over the past 18 months and the University now has a Mentimeter Pro licence available for staff. Mentimeter is an online polling software that can be used to present live or asynchronous polls, quizzes and word clouds. It can be used for in person or hybrid sessions, as well as for online teaching either synchronously or asynchronously. The DEO will be running training on how to use Mentimeter Pro effectively in your teaching over the next few months.

Our first webinar, run by Naomi Beckett and Sophie Shippen, will be on the 22nd September from 10:30am – 11:30am on MS Teams. All the details, and information on signing up can be found on the DEO Events page.
More information about Mentimeter, and guidance on setting up your own account can be found on the DEO website.

If you have any further questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Mentimeter Pro online polling now available to staff

Mentimeter allows you to create polls, quizzes, word clouds and Q&As to be used in live or asynchronous settings. Polling is anonymous and students can download the app, or complete polls from their browser on a laptop, PC or mobile device.

Mentimeter Pro is now available to University staff. The pro version allows poll results to be downloaded, as well as giving you more colour and layout options, introducing the option of creating and sharing presentation templates, and more. Take a look at our Mentimeter page for information on creating your account, or upgrading your free account. If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Questionmark OnDemand – Unscheduled Emergency Maintenance: Saturday 23rd January

Questionmark have advised us that there will be unscheduled emergency maintenance on Saturday 23rd January from 19:00 – 20:00 GMT.

During this 60 minute maintenance window, users taking assessments may encounter service disruptions.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk