What is the Poll Everywhere tool?

Poll Everywhere allows instructors to create Activities, such as polls or word clouds, which encourage student engagement and participation. These can be used with in-person learning experiences or asynchronously by sharing or embedding a link. Students can respond on a computer or mobile device through a web browser or the mobile app.

Note: Instructors may find steps to add Poll Everywhere and other tools to their course in How do I manage Course Navigation links? (opens new window).

Poll Everywhere Features

Instructors can create a variety of activities:

  • Multiple-choice: Provides pre-written options for participants to select.
  • Open-ended: Allows participants to respond to a question with a written answer. 
  • Clickable Image: Requires participants to click on defined regions in the image, some of which are marked as correct.  
  • Ranking: Allows participants to move options into a desired order. 
  • Q&A: Allows participants to submit open-ended responses (questions or ideas), then up-vote or down-vote other submissions. 
  • Survey: Allows instructors to add more than one question to the same activity.

For a complete list of activities, see Poll Everywhere Activity Types (opens new window).

Within an activity, instructors can:

  • Customize how the audience responds: in-person or asynchronous.
  • Test the activity before activating or sharing.
  • Display an activity directly within class or from a PowerPoint slide.
  • Share activity results live via a URL or download a spreadsheet to share at a later time.        
  • Visit the Presenter Guide (opens new window)

Instructors can also:

Find out more by visiting the Instructor Guide (opens new window).

Participants/Students can:

Go to Poll Everywhere.

Select Poll Everywhere from the Course Navigation Menu.

Get Additional Help

Questions about logging into or using Poll Everywhere in Canvas can be addressed to the Learning Technology Services (LTS) Team.

For help with creating and presenting activities in Poll Everywhere, visit the vendor's Support Center (opens new window) or contact them via email, [email protected].