Favorite Find Friday: Rafflecopter

Okay, I found Rafflecopter a couple of weeks ago and actually incorporated it into a blog post for my first online giveaway.  I loved it!  It allows people to click to enter, answer questions, post to Facebook or Twitter, or whatever else the creator of the raffle can dream up to have entrants do.  I opted to have entrants click to enter (called an "easy entry") and answer a question (mine was related to how the participant was utilizing mobile technology in the classroom).  When I created my giveaway, I noticed that you could award bonus entries and extra entry points for different tasks.  Setting up the online giveaway was a piece of cake and Rafflecopter pulled the winner for me when the raffle expired.
I began to consider how this tool could be used in the classroom to engage students.  In fact, I have fiddled with the idea like one fiddles with a loose tooth until I was able to work out the details in my mind.  I was inspired by several English-teaching friends who employ a "red ticket review" to engage students in discussions; in their classes as students answer review questions, the teacher hands them a red ticket on which they write their name and drop in a fish bowl for random prizes awarded each Friday.  I wanted to use Rafflecopter sort of like the red tickets but on bigger scale (more school wide) to have students complete review questions related to the Math portion of the ACT.  (Our high school math department is working together to create test prep questions to use in class each day in hopes of familiarizing our students with the test:)  As we discussed the project in our department meeting, we agreed that it would be fun to encourage participation and accurate answers by drawing for prizes at the end of each week...enter Rafflecopter.

But how?  The Classroom Cafe Gals (me and Kathleen) and friends (Sonya and Stephanie) hosted a professional development session this past Monday on QR Codes...then, it it me - I can use QR Codes to route students to the online raffle.  When they arrive, they can enter their name and their answer to the test prep question.  Rafflecopter will show not only how many students entered, but also who entered and what they answered.  Everyone will be directed into the same random generator and our winners will be chosen from the group of students participating!

Setting up the raffle was easy with Rafflecopter:

Once I got the code:

I embedded the widget on a webpage (could also be a blog or not at all just use the "share" code (but it didn't work as well for me)):

And then, I created the QR Code to route the students to the entry form:

I'll place the code on the power point slides for the ACT Review Question of the Day and the students will  automatically be entered when they scan the image to answer.  So excited and loving #MyFavFriday, Rafflecopter!