You type a question, the board shows a QR code and a 4-digit code, and every word your pupils send lands on the whiteboard as a live word cloud. Pupils join at sageteachers.com/join on whatever they have, a tablet, a laptop or a phone, with no account to make and nothing to install. The words that get sent most grow biggest, up to about seven times the size of a one-off, so the class can see at a glance what most of them think.
A pupil can send more than one word, and each one gets a Sent tick on their screen so they know it has landed. When you want to move on, New question clears the board and the same class stays joined. Nobody has to scan again.
The best moment for it is the start of a topic you are coming back to. Put up one question, "What do you remember about this?", and in about a minute you can see which words stuck and which have gone, before you plan the next lesson. That is the job hands-up does badly, because you only hear from the six who always answer.
Whiteboards do a version of this, and you should still use them. The difference is that children love watching their own word pop up on the screen, and you get the whole class's thinking on one board instead of thirty boards held up at slightly different angles.
I used it most recently for a recap with my class on a topic we were about to go further into. I put one question on the board and asked for the words they remembered. Within a minute I could see what had stuck and what had gone, which is exactly what I needed before planning the next lesson, and the children loved watching their own word appear. It is genuinely satisfying for them, and it gets every child involved without going round one by one.
The two things I was worried about beforehand were our school Wi-Fi and rude words. Neither turned out to be a problem. A Wi-Fi drop does not kill the session, the board picks up where it left off and the children's screens wait for it, and rude words are filtered before they reach the board. I have since used it as an icebreaker in a staff meeting and it did the same job on the adults.
The child who is not forthcoming with answers. Whether that is a learning need or a lack of confidence, the barrier is the same: putting a hand up and saying it out loud in front of everyone. Here they type what they are thinking and send it, and nobody knows whose word it was. There is no friction, so you hear from children you would not otherwise hear from, and you get a better insight into your class than a show of hands gives you.
It helps some teachers as much as it helps the children. If you find it hard to get a feel for what a class already knows before you teach something, this turns that round. The information comes from the children to you, all at once, and fast.
Not with a young class. Younger children can manage the joining and the typing, but something is lost, and the talk you would have had is better than the cloud. It comes into its own from upper Key Stage 2 and upper elementary through middle school, roughly ages nine to fourteen, and it works well with adults.
Three honest limits. Answers are anonymous, so if you need to know who said what, use whiteboards instead. It counts exact words, so "Roman" and "Romans" appear as two words unless you tell the class to send one form. And the board shows the fifty most common words, which is plenty for a class and about right for a hall.
It is free to try, and there is no participant cap. Mentimeter's free plan allows fifty participants a month, which one class uses up in two lessons. Here a class, a year group or a hall can join the same cloud. Joining is as simple as AnswerGarden, with no pupil account, and on top of that you get a classroom rude-word filter, a tap on any word to remove it, and a printed sheet of the finished cloud.
What it costs, plainly: you need a free Sage Teachers account, and opening a word cloud uses one token for the whole day, however many questions you ask after that. Every account gets 20 free tokens and Pro gives 50 a day. Pupils never sign in and never pay.
The rude-word filter is on by default and checks every word twice, once on the pupil's device and again on the board. A blocked word never appears; the child just sees "Let's keep it kind, try another word". You can switch the filter off for an older class, and whatever slips past any filter you can tap off the board in one go.
If the board loses its connection, or you refresh it by accident, open Word Cloud again and it offers to carry on with the same code and the same words. While it is away the children's screens say "Waiting for your teacher" and come back by themselves when the board does. When you are finished, closing the tab is enough. Their screens tell them it has finished.
Do pupils need an account?
No. Pupils scan the QR code or go to sageteachers.com/join and type the 4-digit code, on any device, with no login and no app. Only the teacher needs a free Sage Teachers account.
How many pupils can join a word cloud?
There is no participant cap. It has been tested with over a hundred answers arriving at the same moment, so a class, a year group or an assembly can all send to one board.
Can I ask more than one question?
Yes. New question clears the board and keeps the same class joined, so you can run a whole lesson of questions from one code. One token covers every word cloud you open that day.
Can I print or keep the word cloud?
Yes. Print puts the finished cloud on one landscape sheet with your question at the top, ready for a working wall or a book. Printing costs nothing extra, the day’s token already covers it.
Are the answers anonymous?
Yes. No names are collected and no word is tied to a child, which is why the quiet ones answer. If you need to know who said what, this is the wrong tool for that moment.
If one word is not enough, Working Wall lets pupils post whole ideas to the board the same way. Scattergories turns the same join-with-a-code format into a word game, and Lightning Round runs a quick-fire quiz on it.
Written by a practising primary school teacher · checked September 2026