PollEverywhere.com: Turning Cell Phones into a Tool for Student Engagement

February 20th, 2009 By: Michelle Freeman, Ed.D, CPA and Kent N. Schneider, JD, CPA in Articles, Teaching Strategies, Technology in the Classroom

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Editor’s note: this article originally appeared in The Teaching Professor, a higher education publication. Even though its intended audience is university professors, I think secondary school teachers can harness the power of the wind and use students’ cell phones for learning, not just recreational texting. Reprinted by permission.

Cell phones often are a source of distraction in the classroom. Despite admonitions to turn them off, someone forgets and everyone hears the incoming call. Text messaging, on the other hand, tends to distract the instructor but no one else. Rather than fight the texting, perhaps instructors can engage students by encouraging them to text about the class subject matter. Obviously, this needs to be done in a structured and meaningful way, and Audience Response Systems (ARS) provide a promising model.

Using audience response systems

Audience response systems, like the one used in the TV show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” have been used in classrooms for year. “Clickers,” infrared devices resembling television remote controls, are provided to students to communicate answers to teacher questions. These clicker signals are recorded by a receiver in the classroom and processed by special software running on a classroom computer. The results are immediately available to the instructor and, if projected onto a screen, to the entire class as well.

Instructors using clickers identify numerous advantages. By injecting an element of competition or collaboration, an audience response system (ARS) encourages all students to participate in classroom discussions. By permitting anonymity, and ARS lets even the very shy students contribute. The ARS also makes it possible for instructors to assess classroom participation objectively. Even better, an ARS allows the teacher to monitor class comprehension of content. A quiz lets the instructor know immediately who does and doesn’t grasp the subject matter.

But ARS technology has disadvantages as well. The most significant problem is the cost; clickers for every student (typically purchased by the student), the classroom receivers, and the software for recording student responses. Other obstacles include the time required to set up and maintain the system and the “dog ate my clicker” excuses offered by some students.

Texting on cell phones as a surrogate for “clickers”

For those without access to an ARS system, cell phone texting can be a useful substitute when used in conjunction with PollEverywhere.com. Students send their text massage to a special number from PollEverywhere.com, starting their message with a code word that identifies the class. Their responses can be in the form of a multiple-choice answer or free text, depending on how the professor sets up the poll. The website then compiles the student responses in real time and displays the results on the instructor’s monitor. If desired, the results also can be projected onto a large screen for the entire class to view.

Our classes enjoy watching their multiple-choice answers appear in the form of a bar graph that constantly changes as the number of responses increases. The free-text form is also a wonderful option. It allows teachers to solicit both questions and answers from students. It offers a safe way for reluctant students to speak in class. However, the professor probably should not project the submissions for everyone to see, unless she does not mind the occasional prankster who asks, “Who is the girl in the front row?” instead of a sincere question.

The advantages of this alternative to a dedicated ARS are numerous, starting with the fact that students do not have to buy clickers. Cell phones are ubiquitous, and the majority of students already know how to use them. The instructor benefits, since the polling Website provides and maintains the infrastructure for the ARS. In addition, PollEverywhere.com permits the instructor to use fill-in-the-blank and short-answer questions that could not be used with most ARS systems.

Disadvantages to the cell phone ARS also exist. First, not every student may own a cell phone, and those who do may not have unlimited texting as part of their cell phone plan, thus incurring additional charges for each text message sent. Furthermore, depending on classroom location, signal strength may not always be adequate. Finally, some students may not be adept at testing. However, with a little assistance from classmates or the instructor, all students should quickly feel comfortable with the texting technology.

From the institution’s perspective, only two costs area associated with the cell phone ARS. PollEverywhere.com offers several subscription plans, with monthly fees ranging from $9 for a class of 50 students to $370 for 10,000 participants. The company also provides a free plan for classes with fewer than 30 students. More significantly, the classroom must have Internet access in order to obtain the survey results in real time. Without real-time feedback, a cell phone quiz is not significantly different from an online quiz posted on a class website. Fortunately, the lack of classroom Internet access is a rapidly vanishing problem.

After piloting the use of text messaging in class, we found that cell phone texting is a wonderful method for engaging the students in the discussion at hand. Moreover, we believe they enjoyed the fact that we were trying to speak to them in their language, at least occasionally. PollEverywhere.com provides instructors with an opportunity to use student texting to enhance the learning process.

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Tags: cell phone, engagement

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