Using Smartphones or just phones in general in the classroom can be a useful way of engaging students.  

There is one website that teachers can use to integrate cell phones into the classroom and in my opinion, it is the most useful and engaging.  The web address is: http://www.polleverywhere.com.

What is Poll Everywhere?

- Poll Everywhere is a website that teachers can use to ask students questions about content information.  It is not just limited to asking questions about content though; it can also be used for surveys, whether the surveys relate to content or not.  The website allows students to answer questions anonymously through their cell phones by texting or tweeting in their answers.

Steps to use the website:

1. Go to http://www.polleverywhere.com.  There are two options after you do this.

- Click the "sign up" button and the website will allow you to sign up for free.  Realize the free account only allows 40 polls.  If you want to keep using the website, you have to upgrade your account.

- Click the big green button that allows you to create a poll without signing up (you can test out the website before you make any commitments). 

2. Once you make an account, you can create multiple choice or free response questions for your students.  Just click the green button that says, "create poll."

3. When you come up with a question to ask, fill out the information and press the "create" button when you are finished.  (NOTE: You can create more than one pole at a time.  There is a spot to put another question.)

4. This page will show up and you can allow students to answer the question by text message or tweet.  It is an anonymous poll, so students don't have to get embarrassed about getting the question wrong in front of their peers. Yes, a negative part of the technology is that the teacher doesn't know what each individual student thinks, but it is just an overview of how the class is doing on the information as a whole. (NOTE: If you upgrade your account, you can have students make accounts and they can answer through computers.)

5. As soon as students start texting or tweeting in their answers, it will start looking like this if you decided to do a multiple choice question.  If you decide to do a free response question then the answers will start showing up on the computer screen/overhead.

Application to Teaching and Learning:

1. Like the tutorial above, teachers can use the combination of Smartphones and polleverywhere.com to ask multiple choice questions to see if students are getting the general idea of a lesson.  The tools would be used somewhat like clickers.  Students would text or tweet in their answers with their cell phones.  Then the answers will show up on the overhead.  This allows most students to participate, but not embarrass themselves if they are scared of getting the wrong answer.  If students don't have a phone, then the teacher can upgrade his/her version and let students answer over a computer.  Multiple choice questions can be used in two different cases:

- First, multiple choice questions can be used for getting to know what prior knowledge the students have.  Before starting a lesson, teachers can use polleverywhere.com to see what the students already know about the subject.  For example, if a teacher wants to teach a unit on the U.S. Revolutionary War, he/she can ask simple questions to see if the students have some basic knowledge.  The teacher then can go over the ideas of the Revolutionary War that the students don't understand or not go over the stuff that they understand more.

- Second, multiple choice questions can be used at the end of a unit.  This is useful because a teacher can ask main idea questions to see if the students got the information that the teacher wanted them to receive.  History has a lot of main ideas and if students did not get those important concepts then the teacher will know if he/she did something wrong in teaching.

2. Teachers can also create free response questions.  Before doing this though, the teacher needs to know that he/she can trust his/her students to be able to act responsibly and submit appropriate answers.  If a teacher doesn't know if the students can be trusted or not, the teacher might want to consider hiding these answers and not have the students see them.  Free response questions can be extremely useful in a lesson because it gets all ideas out in the open.  This tool will hopefully get more students involved and they would hopefully be less shy about texting or tweeting in an answer because it is anonymous.  From the responses that are received, a discussion can form.  A teacher can have each response be discussed in small groups or as a whole class.  An example question for history could be: Should the United States have dropped the bomb on Hiroshima? Why or why not?  This question could go in many directions and it could be a whole discussion/debate.

3. The last way you can use these tools is for surveys.  Surveys can be a learning experience for both students and teachers, and that is why it is such a good tool to use.  Plus, the program, polleverywhere.com is anonymous, which is a great way to make people participate in surveys.  At the end of a unit, semester, year this tool can used to survey the students in a class.  Teachers can learn if they are doing a good job at teaching their students.  Giving a survey after a unit or in the middle of a semester is a great thing to do so that teachers can fix what they are doing wrong before it is too late.  These survey questions can be multiple choice or free response.

- Some sample survey questions in history are: 

* Rate the teacher on how well he/she has taught you the main concepts of history? (multiple choice, 1-5)

* How can the teacher improve when teaching history concepts? (free response)

Image Credit:

Picture of Smartphone was taken by me, Emily Duff

Screenshots were take at http://www.polleverywhere.com

Resources to look at for more information:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfgkN2zZIlA 

- This link will take you to a Poll Everywhere tutorial on Youtube.

2. http://kulowiectech.blogspot.com/2011/05/polleverywhere-advice-questioning.html

- Here is a great source that focuses on the problems of using cell phones in the classroom like cell phone policies and some students not having cell phones.  The second thing it focuses on is how to use polleverywhere.com and how to come up with questions to ask students.

3. http://blog.polleverywhere.com/the-modern-middle-east-using-poll-everywhere/

- This link will take you to a blog from a professor from UNC (North Carolina).  She reflects on using polleverywhere.com and cell phones in her history courses.  Something she has done too is have the students register their cell phones so that she can use this tool for attendance.  

4. http://teachinghistory.org/digital-classroom/tech-for-teachers/25273

- A source that focuses on using cell phones in the classroom.  It touches on polleverywhere.com, but then takes these two tools and applies them to teaching history.

5. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/do-cell-phones-belong-in-the-classroom/257325/

- This article has a couple of the positives of cell phones listed, but mostly goes against the use of cell phones in the classroom.  This article can open your mind to both views because this wiki I have created is pro-cell phone use.