Create an event in Polling @ McGill and add questions
- Joana Kort Mascort
Polls are a good way to collect information from your students in the classroom. You can use polls to test students’ knowledge of a particular subject, ask for feedback on course content, or lighten the mood of the class. With Slido, McGill’s polling tool, you can poll students in different ways: choose from various types of single polls, run a quiz, or activate multiple polls at once via Survey.
In this article:
Create a Slido event
Create a Slido event by clicking on + Create Slido.
A pop-up box will appear and ask you to enter an event name and start date. Click schedule Slido.
On the events page, you can add a description for your poll under the three-dot menu.
Click on the Slido event and create your poll from the list of poll options. Alternatively, add a poll from the templates menu.
To activate multiple polls at the same time, create a Survey.
Once your poll is ready, share a link or QR code with the class.
Add polling questions to your Slido event
The steps for adding polling questions are the same for all poll types.
Start a new Slido event.
Go to the Live polls tab, click create poll, and select your poll type (Multiple Choice, Word Cloud, Quiz, Rating, Open Text, Ranking, or Survey).
A pop-up screen will appear. Follow the instructions to input your question and answers, add an image, and select your Poll settings.
Click Save. To make the poll immediately available to your students, click Launch.
Types of polls in Slido
Multiple question types are possible with Slido. All question text can be edited, and you can add a rationale that explains the answer to each question.
Multiple Choice: A multiple-choice question contains a question textbox and an answer textbox, which allows for an unlimited number of answer choices.
Word Cloud: Students provide a one- to three-word response to a question. The word cloud illustrates the words and phrases that appear most frequently in students' responses. Frequent words and phrases increase in size in real time according to student responses.
Quiz: Quizzes can test your students’ knowledge of course content and subject matter. They can also be used to offer your students some friendly competition during class time.
Rating: The rating poll allows students to submit a vote on a scale between 1 and 10 stars. This kind of poll is useful if you would like feedback from your students on a particular subject.
Open Text: The open text poll allows students to provide long answers to questions, such as when you might want students to elaborate on an idea.
Ranking: Ranking polls allow students to arrange ideas according to order of importance or preference.
Survey: A Survey allows you to pose several questions at the same time.
Select different Poll settings
Poll setting | Description | Applicable polls |
|---|---|---|
Add an image | Drag and drop an image into the poll to accompany or be the subject of your poll. | All |
Hide live results | Hide answers to questions until you click to reveal the answers. | Multiple Choice, Open Text, Ranking, Rating, Word Cloud |
Allow multiple answers/Multiple options | Allow students to submit responses of more than one word or phrase. | Multiple Choice, Open Text, Word Cloud |
Enable Profanity filter | Block inappropriate words or phrases. | Word Cloud |
Enable a timer | Set the length of time students have to answer a polling question. | Quiz |
Show a leaderboard | Display the five students with the most correct answers and fastest response time. | Quiz |
Add a poll description | Add a description to your poll. | All |
Display respondent names | Display the students’ names. | Open Text |
Options to rank | Set the number of options to be ranked by students. | Ranking |
Randomize options | Randomize the order of the options in the poll. | Ranking |
Create a Survey
A Survey is a way to ask several questions at the same time.
To create a Survey:
Initiate a new Slido event.
From the Create your polls menu, select any of the options (e.g., multiple choice, word cloud, rating).
A pop-up screen will appear. On the bottom-left hand side of this screen, select Create a Survey.
A new pop-up box will appear. Enter a Survey name and select the type of poll you would like your survey to have from the drop-down menu. For assistance creating different polls, see Create a poll in Slido.
Click Save when you are finished. To make your survey available immediately to your students, click Launch.
Transfer your TurningPoint questions to Slido
McGill’s TurningPoint license expired in August 2022. Access to the software is no longer available. A more streamlined and easier to use tool called Slido is now available.
Depending on the how you created your polls using TurningPoint, you have different options as to how to most easily transfer your materials to Slido.
If you used TurningPoint within a PowerPoint presentation
The polling slides are within your PowerPoint presentation. If you use Windows, you can download the plugin for PowerPoint to easily launch Slido within the presentation.
You can manually export your questions by opening your PowerPoint slides in Outline view, and then copying and pasting them into a new presentation in Slido.
If you used Anywhere Polling
Your polling questions are within the Content tab of TurningPoint. You can export them from TurningPoint, and then copy and paste the polling questions and answer choices to Slido.
Read more:
Slido documentation: