Technology Integration Project #2 - Poll Everywhere

Since my goal is to teach high school government, I decided to look into a technology that could be easily and directly related to politics.  Poll Everywhere is a free online polling service where results can be voted on via text message, Twitter, or the pollev.com website. This allows students to be active members within the polling process and thereby gain a more complete understanding of how polling works.  I made a couple of different polls, but the one I have included for this project is a poll regarding the use and legality of stem-cell research: http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/LTExOTI5ODMzODU. This is a major social issue facing this country’s politicians in the modern era and I thought it would be especially poignant due to our conversations regarding ethics in technology.  

My use of this technology in the classroom will certainly be a modeling activity.  When discussing the use and effectiveness of polling in general, we will discuss sample sizes and margin for error, as well as the idea of sampling different sets of individuals in order to get the most random sample possible.  After seeing examples of these different concepts, which provides scaffolding for the purpose of polling in general, this will allow students to see a concrete example of how the technology works, and allow them to interact with polling in a way that will help them analyze the pros and cons, as evaluate polling’s effectiveness as a means of gathering public opinion.  This would feed from Piaget’s ideas of constructivism, wherein students will have to accommodate for some new criticisms of polling which they likely had not considered in the past.

As far as implementation in the classroom is concerned, Poll Everywhere mostly depends on text messaging as a means of voting in the poll.  This would require students to have cell phones with text messaging capabilities.  While this is becoming more and more prevalent as time goes on, it is likely that there will be a least a few students who will not have cell phones.  Furthermore, there may be a situation where the school I work in prohibits the use of cell phones in class.  If that cannot be overcome, students can vote using the pollev.com website and this activity can be done in a computer lab.  If the latter issue of school prohibition can be overcome, the former problem of students not having phones can be overcome with the purchase of Trac Phones.  Since they would stay in the classroom, I’d likely not need more than five or ten, and it is probable that at least a portion of the cost could be picked up by a department budget. Obviously I would have to ensure that all phones are being used for their appropriate purpose, but that is no different than any other technology.

There are a couple of notable trade offs that come with this technology.  The first one I have noticed every time I’ve seen people use Poll Everywhere.  The program allows you to see results as they are coming in.  If you allows this in the classroom, or in any polling situation, the results themselves can be self propagating.  It can lead to mob rule wherein the people want to “vote for the winner.” It can also lead to people “trying to be different” and choosing a low-percentage choice to express their individuality.  The great thing about that though, is that this sort of thing happens in real life too!  Seeing such things occur will allow them to conceptualize the real bias that occurs in polling.  Furthermore, it will lead to discussion of the legitimacy of polling in general and whether or not it should be allowed before elections due to the influence it can have. This will bring up discussions about France and how pre-election polling is illegal there for the exact reason.  The other major trade off I discovered while playing with this program is the fact that the “answers” or “options” need to be very short.  Due to the font on the website, you can only visibly fit about sixty (60) characters.  This was very frustrating to me, especially for the stem cell question.  When you have complex issue like that to deal with, it is important to be able to effectively explain them, and 60 characters does not always allow for that.

Standards wise, this technology meets ISTE standards #3 and #4. Standard #3 discusses exhibiting “knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.” What really was so exciting to me was how this technology would allow students to interact with the material and how Poll Everywhere, by its very nature, would force them to ask many of the questions and issues that we struggle with politically as a society in the modern day.  Effective teaching does not occur in a vacuum.  Being able to display how the concepts we are teaching effect global society is vastly important in order to keep students engaged in both the current material as well as polling they see after they leave school.  Standard #4 talks about teachers understanding “local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and (exhibiting) legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices.” When asking questions using Poll Everywhere, it is important to ask students questions that matter in the modern landscape.  This shows an understanding of current events.  It is also important to ask questions in a way that avoids any sort of editorializing. That’s where we get into the ethics of such matters.  When I use this technology, we will discuss “push-polling” and talk about different unethical ways in which polling is used, but it is vitally important that I avoid any of those traps when I have students interact with the program.

Livening up the Classroom: Using Audience Response Systems to Promote Active Learning.  http://think.stedwards.edu/computerhelp/sites/webdev1.stedwards.edu.computerhelp/files/clickers/media/Collins2007.pdf The article speaks specifically of using handheld clicker devices to give responses throughout a lecture.  It discusses how students were more engaged in the material because they felt involved, and furthermore there was a sense of anonymity which allowed more shy students to be more free with their opinions.  Poll Everywhere could be used in the same way...but more so, it could be a merging of these two ideas.  It can keep students involved and create lively discussions by allowing them to opine on controversial topics, but it could also provide material with which to create new lessons.  Overall, I was impressed with the functionality of Poll Everywhere, but I was more impressed in the long run with how many ways I thought of to use the technology in the future!