In our last post we discussed one of our favourite web 2.0 tools - Popplet. It's a simple and attractively presented mind mapping tool that also allows for collaboration (check out all our previous bulletins here). Today's bulletin is about online survey or polling tools.
Polling tools can be used in a number of ways in the class:
*Get an overview of students' opinions about an issue - or different aspects of an issue
*Get an overview of how students feel about characters or the ending in a text
*Get an overview of how students feel about a theme or topic being studied
*Students can create their own list of 'powerful' questions to ask about a text, issue or topic and poll each other
Polling tools are a way of getting everyone in a class involved and providing feedback. They also provide a starting point for class discussion.
There are two polling tools which are particularly good. The first is Flisti. This is a well presented tool that is quick and easy to use. It requires no account or log in. Simply visit the page, create a new question and then share the URL it creates with your students. Students themselves can easily create questions, too. Find the tool here.
Votos is also easy to use, but requires an account and a log in. If you have a Facebook or a Twitter account (which most of your students will), you can log in with these. Otherwise you can create your own account. Votos' features are slightly more advanced - giving you more options on how people can respond to your question (such as ranking answers). Find the tool here.
Both tools allow people responding to a question to also give a written response. This make both these polling tools ideal feedback tools. Students need to tick an answer to the question, but then provide a brief written response. If students are doing this all at the same time, response information is updated live - so they will be able to see the survey results develop in front of them, and read the comments from other students. Once you do this, you'll easily see how it can spark class discussion.
Log onto our practice Flisti question here - should we let students use Facebook in our schools?
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