Using Learner Response Systems
(ActiVotes, ActivExpressions)
Creating a Prepared Question ......................................................................................................... 2
Revising Prepared Questions .......................................................................................................... 6
Launching Questions ...................................................................................................................... 7
Express Poll .................................................................................................................................... 8
Exporting Results ............................................................................................................................ 9
Viewing Results Without Exporting ............................................................................................. 11
Self-Paced Question Sets .............................................................................................................. 12
Generated Question Sets ............................................................................................................... 16
Monitoring Self-paced Questioning .............................................................................................. 18
Contributions From ....................................................................................................................... 18
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
1
Creating a Prepared Question
1. On the Insert menu, select Question. Screen #1 of the question wizard will appear.
2. Select the type of question you wish to ask.
3. Select the number of options (if applicable).
4. Choose whether you want the question to go on the existing page or on a new page.
5. Click the Next button to continue with the next screen of the Question Wizard.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
2
6. On the wizard screen #2, you may elect to use a pre-designed question.
a. If you already have the page the way you want it or if you wish to design it your
self, then uncheck the Replace page content with a new design checkbox.
Important! If on screen #1, you selected Add Question to the Current Page and
you choose a new design, then the new design will REPLACE everything on your
current page. If you do not want that to happen, uncheck Replace page content
with a new design.
b. Otherwise, select a pre-designed question template.
Notes:
o The templates available will vary with the type of question and number of options
you selected on the first screen of the wizard.
o There are two scroll bars on the right hand side. The top one scrolls through the
template choices. The bottom one increases or decreases the size of the template
thumbnails.
o If you select the plain text template, the question and answers will be added to the
flipchart as plain text, which you can modify as see fit.
7. Click the Next button to advance to the next screen of the wizard.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
3
8. The fields in the next screen (#3) of the wizard will vary based on the type of question
you selected. For example, below you will find screen #3 for a multiple choice question.
Be sure the
labels match
what appears
on the
flipchart
page.
9. Click the Next button to advance to the next screen of the wizard.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
Important!
You can
only see
half of this
dialog box.
Scroll
down to
enter the
answer
choices for
this
question.
4
10. On screen #4 of the wizard, you have the option of setting the correct answer for your
question.
a. Select the Assign correct answers check box to assign a correct answer.
b. Click in the checkbox to the right of the correct answer.
Notes:
o When you assign a correct answer, that choice will display in green on the results
graph to provide students with immediate feedback. Alternatively, you have the
flexibility to assign a correct answer once the results are shown and you have
discussed them.
11. Click the Next button to advance to the next screen of the wizard.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
5
12. On screen #5, you have the option of adding a follow up question. The only format for a
follow up question is Likert scale. When the voting has stopped on the original question,
an orange arrow will appear in the voting function box that is used to access the followon question.
13. Click the Finish button.
Revising Prepared Questions
Important!
To edit your question, on the Edit menu, select Question on Current Page.
To delete a question, right-click on a blank spot on the page and select Remove
Question.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
6
Launching Questions
1. When you are on a flipchart page with a prepared question, the Start/Stop Vote button
will be green . Click the Start Vote
button to launch the question.
Note: You can only launch a voting session when you have an ActivHub attached to
your computer.
2. When a vote is in progress, the Start/Stop Vote button will turn red. When students
have finished responding to the question, click the Stop Vote button.
3. If you have elected to Show Results
after Voting, the View Results
window will appear with a graph of the
results.
4. At the top left of the View Results
window is a drop down list box where
you can select the type of graph to
display.
5. At the top right of the View Results window are three buttons.
Identify
correct
answers
Word seed:
Copy text
to flipchart
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
Paste graph of
results onto the
flipchart page.
7
Express Poll
Icon
Action
Express Poll
 Set up a question on the fly
Multiple Choice
 In this example, possible answers are A – D, 1 correct response
Number Question
 Use the keypad to enter a number
Yes or No
 Format for Yes/no; Yes/No/I don’t know
 Format for True/False or True/False/I don’t know
Sort in Order
 Enter letter choices in the correct sequence
Likert Scale
 Confidence:
Likert Scale
 Agreement:
Text Question
 Use the Alpha-Numeric keypad to type your response
Export Poll Results to Excel
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
8
Exporting Results
1. If your browser window is not open, on the View
menu, select Browsers. Open the Voting
browser.
2. Click the plus sign next to Results Browser to
reveal the question-by-question browser.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
9
3. The question-by-question browser will appear.
There will be a row for each question you
launched. This will include prepared questions as
well as “on-the-fly” questions.
4. Click the Export button.
5. Specify a filename and location. Click the Save button.
6. The results will appear in Excel.
7. You may use the tabs of this spreadsheet to drill down to view details by question.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
10
Viewing Results Without Exporting
If you do not wish to save the results to Excel, you may quickly view results from the questionby-question browser. This feature is also handy if you accidently close the results graph before
you are done viewing it.
1. Open the question-by-question browser by clicking
on the plus (+) sign in front of Results Browser.
2. Double click on any question to view the results for
that question.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
11
Self-Paced Question Sets
Self-paced questioning allows the teacher to create a set of questions that will be sent directly to
ActivExpressions. This feature allows students to proceed from question to the next at their own
pace (without needing to wait for the question to be displayed on the ActivBoard). Additionally,
questions can be randomized. All 6 types of questions can be used. Furthermore, results appear
on the teacher’s computer as students are taking the quiz; therefore, teachers can monitor and
respond results of quiz while it is in progress.
1. On the Insert menu, select SelfPaced Question Set ….
2. The self-paced question wizard will
appear. Click the Insert button.
3. The Insert Question Wizard will
open. This wizard is very similar to
the question wizard for prepared
questions which was described above.
The only differences are:
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
12
4. You can select the Number of Questions to Create. If your questions are going to vary
in configuration (e.g., one true/false, on multiple choice, one numeric entry) then leave
this as one. On the other hand if you plan to have block of similarly-formatted questions,
you can enter the number of questions you plan to have in that block. You still can add
other questions of different formats after your block of questions is created. You can also
randomize or reorder the questions after they are all created.
5. You may also set the Level of the question. You will be able to create progressive levels
of questions. Students progress from one level to the next based on the criteria (# correct)
you establish for each level.
6. Click the Next button. You will
then continue to set up the
questions (just like you do for
single prepared questions).
Remember to fill in the answer
choices.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
13
7. Specify the correct answer and
click the Finish button to
continue.
8. You will be back at the Selfpaced Question Wizard. From
here you can edit, add, or
randomize your questions. For
each subsequent question,
repeat steps 2-7 above.
9. When you are done creating
questions click the Next button.
You will then be able to set the
criteria you want for each level
of questions and whether or not
students will be able to retry
incorrect answers.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
14
10. Click the Next button again.
You will then be able to enter a
title, description, and time limit
for your question set. You also
decide whether to embed the
question set on the current page
or on a new page.
11. If available select a template
design. Click the Finish button.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
15
Generated Question Sets
If you wish to make a question set for practice of basic math facts, then ActivInspire can
generate the questions for you.
1. On the Insert menu,
select Self-Paced
Question Set ….
2. Then click the
Generate button.
3. The Question
Generator wizard will
appear. Fill in the
fields to specify the
type of math facts to
include.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
16
4. Click the Generate
button. The math
problems will then
appear in the right
hand field.
5. Click the Insert button to copy these problems to your question set.
6. Click the Done button to return to the Self-paced Question Wizard.
7. From here, proceed as if you created the questions yourself (see steps 9-11 above under
Self-paced question sets).
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
17
Monitoring Self-paced Questioning
You will be able to monitor students’ progress as the set is administered. You can pause the
assessment to provide clarification if needed or stop the assessment at any time.
Each green box is a question answered correctly. To see a particular student’s response, hover
over that question. If you notice that certain students are struggling, feel free to work with them
individually. Usually, you would not want students to see this progress chart as they are working
through the quiz. To hide the monitoring chart from student view, minimize this window, turn
off your projector, or freeze your projector.
Contributions From
o
o
o
o
Ben Wagner-BCPS-OIT
Kathy Benson-BCPS-Vincent Farm Elementary
Jessica Cobb (Self-Paced Questions flipchart via Promethean Planet)
Denise Galeo (ActivExpression Devices - Embedding Questions in Flipcharts via
Promethean Planet)
o Mastering ActivInspire: All in One Reference Guide by Gene Warner.
Baltimore County Public Schools
Office of Instructional Technology: Using LRS – ActiVotes ActivExpressions
August 2010
18