Clicker Monster

What is Clicker Monster app?

Clicker Monster is a classroom response app. Teachers begin an online session, and students use mobile devices to join it. Teachers and students use the app through screens designed to suit the user's role—teachers set questions and view students' responses while students input those responses to the questions put by their teacher.

The app works in conjunction with your favourite presentation software. Each question and the potential answers, if it is multiple choice, are set by the teacher as a slide. As teachers address the class, they type in the question they are about to ask into Clicker Monster or enter another way of identifying which slide the question references. They also indicate the correct answer so that each respondent can see whether they were right.

Kids then enter the answer on their device by selecting one or more options from multiple choices or as a single freeform answer. As a class answers, the on-screen overview lets teachers know who is left to answer and what each respondent has entered. This is all recorded for later consideration and assessment by the teacher.

A key feature of Clicker Monster is that each student's responses are not anonymised. The teacher can see who has answered and whether they are correct. 

What we love about Clicker Monster app.

Teachers who are used to other classroom response apps might find it unusual to have the questions in a separate presentation app like an Interactive Whiteboard app or PowerPoint, but this has some advantages.

Familiarity — teachers don't have to learn a new system

Efficiency — teachers won't have to recreate existing lessons

Flexibility — the question slides can still be used with their interactivity as teaching aids

Price — focusing on the key function of managing questions and answers without adding features already realised by established software has no doubt contributed to this app's ability to be free

The only downside is that if you don’t enter full questions into Clicker Monster and instead rely on matching the question numbers to your slides, you will need to go back and forth between the two apps when you revisit the answers.  It is an avoidable issue, though, so entirely your choice how you wish to use the app.

It isn't just about being free, though. Clicker Monster works exceptionally well at managing and supporting classroom question and answer sessions. The app adds an extra layer of feedback that gives kids motivating feedback and teachers insight.

Another side effect of being free is that teachers won't feel pressured into using Clicker Monster because their school is paying for it. Sometimes teachers think they should use an app to get value for money even if it does not easily lend itself to the current session. Being free, Clicker Monster is a guilt-free addition to each teacher's options, however much or little they use it.

The choice of making Clicker Monster web-based opens its use up to the maximum number of schools. Kids can use any of the devices schools have, even relatively old ones, to give their responses. A device with a reasonably modern browser is likely to work. In this review of Clicker Monster, we tested the student response display on phone and desktop-sized screens, and it worked perfectly well on both.

What skills does it teach?

Clicker Monster can support teaching and learning in any subject as a classroom response system.

What age is it appropriate for?

Monster Clicker could be used in any classroom. The app's presentation is age-neutral which won't put off older students. If kids can read the response options, they will be able to respond to the questions.

Is Clicker Monster app easy to use?

Once teachers have created an account, there are only two more steps to begin using Clicker Monster with your class.

First, you'll need to create a class within Clicker Monster that reflects the one you intend to teach using this tool. Fortunately, you shouldn't need to spend too long on this part as long as you have a class list that you can turn into a CSV list. You can do this using your spreadsheet software. Other apps with class lists also often allow you to export the information to a CSV.

The next step is to give your kids their student codes. We'd recommend that you think about the best way to do this within your planned lesson to minimise how long it takes to give each child their code. You might place the code on each desk or in each student's book. 

There is very little for students to do other than enter their options, so the process of answering should be very straightforward and clear.

You should then be ready to assess the understanding of each student.

How will students benefit?

Some kids find it hard to stay engaged when they are not interacting. Others put their effort into the wrong results, such as avoiding their teacher's gaze and having to answer questions. Clicker Monster keeps students actively involved and ensures that they have to participate.

Ultimately, this engagement benefits students by holding their attention. Without the knowledge gaps caused by wandering attention, students won't miss crucial points and find themselves struggling to catch up on later content. 

In the long term, this should result in better understanding and test results.

How will teachers benefit?

Price and features are not the only things teachers need to think about when considering adding a new app to their toolset—time is important too. Setting an app up, finding out how all its components work and then creating an activity eat into teachers' time. 

It is a good investment of time if the app turns out to be suitable, but not so much if the app is not. Clicker Monster has a simulation feature that not many apps share. You can see an example teacher dashboard and a simulation of what students see. Creating a free account and accessing this feature will take just a few minutes and should give most teachers the necessary information.

In the classroom, Clicker Monster enhances the information teachers have to assess whether their students have understood. They can see who has answered and whether the response was correct. 

During the lesson, teachers can use their class's answers to decide whether it is time to move on or not and whether any individuals or groups need extra support. After the lesson, teachers can go back through the recorded responses to look for any patterns they might have missed and discover issues they need to address next time.

The speed and clarity with which Clicker Monster informs teachers about their students' understanding can help teachers reflect on their teaching methods as they ensure that no child in their class is left behind as the lessons progress.

What can Clicker Monster app improve on?

Clicker Monster is well made and works well, so any suggestions are to polish the experience rather than fixing flaws or problems.

Teachers will likely appreciate it if the Q&A dashboard also showed student access codes alongside the students' names. This could help overcome any problems kids, especially younger ones, have when logging in or if they lose or mix up their codes. As it is, teachers can still access the codes but have to go to a different screen.

Teachers click on boxes containing student names to mark the answers. One click highlights the box green for correct and two clicks highlight it red for incorrect. 

Accessibility guidelines advise that colour should not be the sole indicator of information as it excludes those with colour vision limitations. It could be a particularly pronounced problem in this case, as red and green are the two colours most likely to be indistinguishable. 

Adding another indicator, such as a tick or cross icon, would solve this issue.

How much does Clicker Monster app cost?

At the time of this review, Clicker Monster was entirely free for every teacher to access. There were no premium accounts, advertising, or associated marketing. The site requests that you donate to ensure that Clicker Monster remains free for all students, teachers and schools, regardless of their budgets. 

This is an unusual and commendable approach, so it would be great if you could contribute and keep Clicker Monster free.

Is Clicker Monster app safe to use?

Kids do not need to create an account for Clicker Monster. They can access a session by visiting the student page of the web app and entering the code you generated for them in the class creation section of the app. These codes do not need to match schools' official student IDs.

The data teachers enter is necessary for the app to fulfil its purpose or is optional.

Teachers enter their students' names. They could keep this to a first name and initial if they choose. They also have the option of assigning a number representing their students within the school system to allow for better data transfer. Finally, there is an optional field for a grade which could be a target for the year or what they achieved in the past school year.

Overall rating of the app.

What is not to like about a free app that adds genuinely valuable tools to help teachers assess their students' understanding and helps keep kids engaged in the lessons? Clicker Monster is easy to incorporate into your existing addresses and free and easy to try out. We recommend you create a free account with this five-star app now.