Planning your session
Planning is essential in using Vevox activities to help meet your session learning outcomes. Keep in mind the following:
- Purpose of polling: Be clear on whether polls are for formative assessment, engagement, feedback, or knowledge checks. This helps shape question design and timing.
- Question design: Use clear, concise language. Avoid ambiguity and ensure questions align with learning outcomes.
- Use of word clouds or open text: These can be powerful for gathering qualitative feedback or generating ideas. Consider how to guide participants on your expectations to reduce the likelihood of unexpected or inappropriate text submissions.
- Timing within the session: Plan when to launch polls—e.g., at the start for icebreakers, mid-session for comprehension checks, or at the end for reflection.
- Follow-up discussion: Always discuss poll results to reinforce learning and encourage participation. Don’t just show results—talk about them.
- Language and readability: Use plain language and avoid jargon. Consider international students or those with learning differences.
- Gamification: Consider whether you would like to use features like leaderboards or quizzes to boost engagement, particularly in large lectures. The context is important though – students can be demotivated if it leaves them feeling they are struggling compared to others in the group.
- Too many polls or repetitive formats can lead to disengagement. Mix up interaction types and keep sessions dynamic.
- Device access: Although most students will have access to devices and internet, you may want to note ahead of the session that you will be using Vevox activities and encourage students to bring a smart phone, tablet or laptop to participate. There is always the option to discuss answers with the person sitting nearby if someone doesn’t have a device available on the day.
Present view or PowerPoint add-in?
This is largely down to your preference. However, there are a few things worth keeping in mind:
- Present View works well when you have a series of questions together; the PowerPoint add-in can be simpler when you have single questions interspersed with other slides
- Both work in online sessions, but if you are using the PowerPoint add-in keep in mind that it won’t work if you are using PowerPoint Live in Teams. It can be fiddly sharing your PowerPoint screen rather than using the features in PowerPoint Live, so you might want to keep your Vevox questions in a block so you can use the Present View, or consider other interactive features within Teams like Polls and the chat pane.
Practising your session and troubleshooting
It’s a good idea to run through your polls to check they work as expected. Some issues you may experience are:
- Polls not appearing (PPT): Check the question and result slides are paired correctly in PowerPoint. If they’re out of order or missing, polls won’t function properly.
- Legacy PowerPoint add-in poll slides still included: Make sure you have deleted all poll slides, including the joining slide, created in the legacy PowerPoint add-in that has now been retired. You should be able to import the same questions using the new add-in.
- Audio/video interference: If using embedded media, ensure it doesn’t conflict with polling slide timings or cause delays in slide transitions.
- Slide transitions or animations: Complex transitions or animations in PowerPoint can interfere with the polling add-in. Keep slides simple and clean.
Clear your test responses afterwards. You can do this from within the PowerPoint, or from the dashboard if you are using Present View.
Running your session
Setting up
Using the PowerPoint add-in: In your teaching space, open your PowerPoint. Check:
- Have you started the session in Vevox? If it’s in “Stopped” mode, it won’t be visible to participants.
- Have you logged in to connect your slides to the Vevox session? You need to do this via the Vevox icon on your PowerPoint Home ribbon. If you don’t see the Vevox icon, it may be hidden by other add-ins or the screen size. Select ‘Add-Ins’ and you should be able to find or install it there.
Using the Present View: In your teaching space, open a web browser and log in to https://southampton.vevox.com. Locate your session and check the session is started.
Browser pop-up blockers can prevent certain features (like login prompts or result displays) from appearing, so you may wish to disable pop-up blockers temporarily.
Waiting for responses
Participants answer at different speeds, and waiting for everyone to complete can feel like dead space in a session – particularly when it’s online. One option is to use the timer – although give enough time that participants don’t feel rushed. You are not always going to get 100% completion. If you don’t use the timer, you could give a 10-second warning before closing the poll. What feels slow to you can be time spent engaged with the activity for your participants.
Note in the Settings section for Polls it is possible to turn on an Automatic Countdown Timer that will allow you to set a custom time for the countdown, but it will apply to every poll in your session which may not be helpful – especially if you have a mix of different types of questions.
Meaningful engagement and managing misuse
Vevox can work really well to encourage all students to contribute their thoughts, particularly those who might be more reluctant to speak out. Depending on your students and your teaching circumstances, you may want to balance how you enable all to participate freely, with how you manage responses. Planning how Vevox will contribute meaningfully to the learning outcomes is a big part of this, but you also may want to consider the following:
- Anonymous/named: Students may be hesitant to speak up. Anonymous responses in polls and Q&A can reduce anxiety and increase honesty. However, you may prefer to use named responses for tracking. It is also possible to identify and track students via single sign on, but keep their identities hidden from other students. View more information about options for identifying students.
- Poll settings: By default, ‘Display real-time results’ is off, and ‘Display result on poll close’ is on. You can amend these as required.
- Vevox Q&A: This feature can be great for getting students to contribute thoughts and highlight others’ contributions they agree with. It can help to turn it on in the settings at the point you want to use it, and then turn it off again.
- Moderating: Vevox has a profanity filter that is on by default. You can turn on moderation for Q&A so that responses are not released immediately, but if you want to use this in a live session it may be easier to have a colleague take care of this while you present.
Closing a poll accidentally
Sometimes there is a short pause while you wait for a Vevox slide to load, and if you press ‘enter’ while waiting, you may find you have moved onto the results slide without anyone participating. It is straightforward to clear responses (you need to do this even if there are none) and re-run a poll, but it’s a good idea to practise this ahead of the session so you know what to do.
Slow poll opening in PPT: The first poll may sometimes take a little longer to load in PPT due to internet speed or number of polls. Be patient and avoid rapid clicking.
Individual participants with technical issues
In a large lecture it is not usually possible to support individuals who are having issues connecting. They may want to check they are connected to the appropriate WiFi. If the poll doesn’t move to the next question for an individual when it does for everyone else, refreshing the page usually fixes this.
The joining instructions should appear throughout any Vevox actitivies so anyone who joins later should still be able to participate in the remaining questions. However it’s key to have a participation option for anyone who is continuing to have issues. Can they discuss with the person next to them instead? Is there enough information shown on the main screen that students can still consider the questions and view the answers?