There are a number of options if you’d like to use a Menti slide or two while presenting online
PowerPoint Add-in
Advantages
- Can be embedded in your PowerPoint
- Allows you to have videos and other resources embedded in PowerPoint, and it all work seamlessly
- Students can see the results of the Menti slides in context when looking back over the lecture
Potential issues
- Only a limited number of Menti slides can be embedded into any single PowerPoint
- If you re-use the lecture and re-set the Menti questions, the students will see the most recent set of answers, not those from their session
- To avoid this, you’ll have to recreate the lecture, copy the Menti, and update the links between the two
- Note that this will mean you won’t be able to compare sets of Menti answers from different groups
- You can’t upload the PowerPoint to Collaborate as it will convert to a static set of slides.
More information:
- Mentimeter PowerPoint plugin – CTIL’s guide
Create whole presentation in Mentimeter
Given the issues noted above, you may wish to create the whole presentation in Mentimeter. This can include importing an existing Powerpoint presentation to Mentimeter.
Advantages
- A single item, with unlimited numbers of Menti question slides
- Easy to have Menti’s Q&A available at all times
- Students can see the results of the Menti slides in context
Potential Issues
- It’s not possible to include PowerPoint slides with live links, videos, etc.
- If you re-use the lecture and re-set the Menti questions, the students will see the most recent set of answers, not those from their session
- To avoid this, you’ll have to copy the Menti, which will leave the original set for those students who participated
- This means you won’t be able to compare sets of Menti answers from different groups
More information:
- Importing presentations to Menti – Mentimeter’s guide that covers PowerPoint, Keynote and Google slides
Run your slideshow and a Menti presentation
Given the limitations of both of the above, you may prefer to run both Powerpoint (or Keynote), and Mentimeter on your computer, and use the screen share options in Collaborate or Teams.
Preparation
You may have found that if you try to show a presentation while Collaborate is open, it can take over all your screens. This means that the students can hear you, but you can’t see the chat. The best way to overcome this is to set it to run in a separate window. This will work even if you only have one screen.
If you are using Keynote, the equivalent option is “Play Slideshow in Window” under the Play menu.
In PowerPoint, you could alternatively select the Kiosk option and determine which screen you would like it to play on. You’ll need to remember to put Collaborate on a different screen. Using the Window makes it easier to move things on the fly.
In the session
Make sure you have Collaborate on one screen, and then a browser tab for Mentimeter on one screen and the presentation’s window also on the same screen. As you’re going to be sharing a screen, you probably want to ensure that Teams, Outlook, etc. are all closed! You’ll probably also want to ensure that the presentation covers the whole screen.
Simply use Share screen option to select the screen you want to share in Collaborate (remembering to click the audio button if you have videos etc, in your presentation). Once you’re up and running, you can either minimise or maximise the presentation / Menti to switch between them, or, if you prefer, use Alt/Tab (on Windows) or cmd/tab (on a Mac) to move between the two items.
Advantages
- You can use all the features of PowerPoint (e.g. embedded links, embedded video etc) as well as multiple Menti slides during the session
Potential Issues
- It takes a bit of time to set up in advance
- Fiddly (but not impossible) if you only have one screen
- Tip: Use the share application Window option, rather than share screen
- You may forget when in the presentation when you intended to use Menti
- Tip: Put in a placeholder slide to remind you
- You’ll have to give the students the presentation and the Menti results as two separate files
File upload to Collaborate – Menti in the browser
In this particular instance, you’ll use the file share option to upload your presentation to Collaborate and have Menti ready in a separate tab or on a different screen.
During the session, you’ll have to switch between the shared file and the tab/screen that’s got Menti on it using the share button in Collaborate.
Advantages
- Less time to prepare the screens etc, than running the slideshow from within Powerpoint
- Works with one screen
Potential issues
- Takes time to switch between file sharing and tab sharing
- When you return to the shared file, you’ll have to navigate manually to the next slide
- To solve that issue, you could break the presentation into several smaller presentations with the Menti slides at the end of each section. Then you’ll be able to start each small presentation from its first slide (and it’ll help you remember the exact point where you wanted the Menti slides!)
- You’ll have to give the students the presentation and the Menti results as two separate files
Any other questions
If you have any other questions:
- Have a look at our Guides
- Come to a drop in
- Start a Chat, or raise a ticket on the self service portal
Updated on 24/08/2021