Cell phone surveys

(Originally posted 3/1/11)

At the last faculty meeting, we used a web site that allowed people to text their responses to a prompt and projected the results. You may have thought that such a thing is difficult to pull off. In fact, it's quite easy- and it's free (for up to 30 responses per question). The site is http://www.polleverywhere.com/ .

There are some things to consider when using this site, however:
1) Equity. Many kids have cell phones with unlimited text plans, but not all. One nice thing about polleverywhere is that they provide a URL for submission over the web. Students without cell phones (or with smartphones) can use this, instead.

2) Anonymity. You don't know who is submitting which response, so a conversation about appropriateness is probably a good idea beforehand.

You can create multiple-choice or text questions. You can also download the results afterward for future reference.