Many schools often ban Mobile Phones as a distraction, but in Computing we view them as tools – both a platform for development and a means of using technology to enhance our learning. In the more relaxed environment of Further Education (16+ in the UK), we do not automatically ban Mobiles, and I want to take it further to embrace them as a tool for engagement in the Classroom, Computer Lab and Lecture Theatre.

There are tools out there but they are almost exclusively web based and this doesn’t always chime well with the workflow as the teacher has to Alt-Tab to a web page to garner student reactions and answers. This has been my main issue with Mentimeter – a great product but with a cost and an interface limited by the web browser. I wanted something which worked within Microsoft PowerPoint, so I wrote Kallbak.

Kallback is a low cost solution for Educators to have integrated interactions with the Students in their Classroom or Lecture Theatre. With the aid of a QR code or a 6-letter shortcode, students can answer an open question, a multiple choice question, create a word cloud or respond to an image. This is displayed in the Powerpoint Presentation Slide in real time.

What’s more, you can then ask Google Gemini AI to summarise and correct the answers given.

The Presenter/Teacher/Lecturer has his own control panel to enable and disable submissions to the page shown over his presentation screen.

…thus enabling them to Start the Presentation and run multiple slides with Kallbaks on them.

The whole add-in runs separately from your Slideshow template, so you can customise the look and feel of the displayed page to match your own needs.

The kallbak.com website enables you to create your own questions, use other submitted questions and create QR codes and the necessary links to be able to take Kallbaks from your classes.