Cell Phone Polling in the Classroom

                Over the course of the last four or so years, I’ve noticed an increase in the amount of presentations that include polls conducted through text messaging technology. I’m not sure if there’s a specific term for this technology or how it works exactly. From what I understand, people in the audience send a text message to a certain phone number that contains either a number or a code word and then a poll is generated through the magic of technology based on the code words/numbers received. I have seen this system being used with audiences ranging in size from about 30 people to over 6,000.

 After seeing it be used with a variety of audiences, I began to wonder how this system would play out in a classroom setting.  This method of polling would allow students to answer questions in a timely manner while enabling them to use one of their most beloved technologies (their cell phones) in the process. The use of cell phones as a medium for communication in the classroom would also help more introverted students have their opinions counted. It would certainly be useful for getting student input for simple things (such as "Which book should we read next?") that would allow students to have some level of influence in what's going on in their classroom.

While the texting-polling system is great for gleaning simple input from many students at once, it isn’t without drawbacks. With a poll, the answers would be pre-determined and may detract from getting responses accurate to what students would verbally say in response. There’s also an element of social interaction to polling—seeing what your peers like or don’t like, what they want, how they feel, and who thinks or feels what—that a generated poll simply can’t convey. With that said, I think this relatively new method of polling could be great in a large class if used sparingly for simple questions that rely on student input.