Exiting presentation mode should NOT automatically deactivate current poll
Currently, and contrary to what the help documents say, exiting presentation mode automatically deactivates the current poll without warning. But this makes it very difficult to keep a poll open after class (such as a "muddiest point" question for students to submit requests for clarification). The recommended method for keeping a poll active at the end of class requires exiting presentation mode, advancing to the next activity, and then activating that new activity manually. That's both cumbersome and completely unintuitive.
Here are three potential solutions to this dysfunctional platform behavior:
(1) When a poll is activated in presentation mode and the user exits presentation mode, then throw up a dialog box that says “You’re exiting presentation mode with an active poll. Do you want to keep it activated? Choices: Yes or No.”
OR
(2) Same situation, the dialog box says “You’re exiting presentation mode with an active poll. Be sure to deactivate it if you don’t want students to continue responding to this poll. Button: OK”
OR
(3) Same as (2) but have the message appear for 5-10 seconds and then disappear automatically.
Any of these alternatives would be a 1000% improvement on the current condition. After all, professors who are concerned about students continuing to respond to an active poll can easily manually deactivate their final poll after leaving presentation mode. That’s much more intuitive than the current situation in which presentation mode is now inextricably connected to activation. If you can activate without going into presentation mode (which you can), then you certainly ought to be able to leave presentation mode without deactivating.
I hope to see one of these solutions implemented very soon. Thanks for considering my concerns.
J H Verkerke
shared this idea
Hi there! Thanks for your feedback.
To clarify, Present mode is designed for live presentations. Keeping the last activity activated by default can create confusion for presenters who are hosting multiple presentations for different audiences. This behavior was also specifically requested by customers who continued receiving responses after a class or presentation, meaning that students would earn credit even without attending the live lecture.
If you're looking to collect responses asynchronously, we recommend a few solutions:
- Pinned Activities: These Q&A activities remain available on another tab at pollev.com, regardless of the currently activated activity.
- Response links: These unique links can be pasted into emails, forum posts, messages, and calendar invites so participants can respond at any time.
- Activate button: If you're looking to activate an activity without presenting it live, you can use the Activate button or icon from the browser, any of our slideware apps, or our mobile presenter app. That way, participants can respond at your pollev.com URL without necessarily joining the same meeting. Depending on your settings, the activity will deactivate after a certain period of time.
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J H Verkerke
commented
The "solution" you have adopted to address the concerns of "customers who continued receiving responses after a class or presentation" works fine for that specific group of users. But it forces other users, like me, who must leave the classroom before students have finished responding to the final poll question, with a cumbersome and unintuitive workaround.
I'm at a loss to understand why you have categorically rejected an alternative that would give both groups of users control over what happens to their polls. When exiting presentation mode, why not prompt users to decide what happens with the currently activated activity? The customers you describe can simply select "Deactivate" and those who need to continue receiving responses can select "Keep Activated".
Alternatively, this behavior could easily be subject to a user-level setting. The default behavior could even be to deactivate, but users for whom that behavior is problematic could change that default to "keep activated". In short, your summary rejection of this proposal shows a disappointing disregard for an important group of users whose instructional needs dictate continued student responses to the final poll of a presentation.
None of the "solutions" you describe makes sense for a final "muddiest point" question presented to students towards the end of a class session. I hope and trust that you will reconsider this decision and explore better solutions that enable rather than frustrate loyal users of Poll Everywhere.