ParticiPoll – BYOD Polling solution

Diana Taylor — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 06:50:56 +0000

What is ParticiPoll ?

ParticiPoll is a BYOD polling solution, i.e. it works on the premise that participants (students) respond to the poll via any internet enabled device.

How does polling facilitate learning?

It enables you to gauge student understanding:

Pose questions directly related to the content of your unit

You can stimulate student thinking through meaningful questions:

With standard MC question types it’s easy to fall back on asking factual questions.
Ask questions that will prompt higher order thinking such as “What if?” questions, or create problem based questions that require students to apply a rule or evaluate a scenario.

It provides an opportunity for students to gain insight into the views of their peers:

This can enhance the students reflection process.
“Harnessing multiple perspectives promotes an understanding of the testable and contestable nature of knowledge (Caviglia-Harris and Haltley, 2004)” (Southam, 2014).

It facilitates feed-forward: enabling you to take action based on student responses

A great opportunity for continual improvement

Captures student responses

Poll tools keep a record of responses and can provide statistical reports.

How does ParticiPoll work?

ParticiPoll integrates directly with PowerPoint. The tool is designed in a way that enables you to activate the add-in in PowerPoint without requiring installation rights in teaching spaces.

It is recommended that you install the complete program on your main workstation, this has built in software updates. You will need to have authorised installation rights for this. In the teaching space you just download the macro-enabled add-in every time you wish to run the poll. Takes 1 minute.

Available question types

ParticiPoll caters for multiple choice and comment responses (Pro version only).

How much does it cost?

There are FREE and PRO accounts.

The free version will get you unlimited polls and participant votes. The Pro accounts gives you access to comment responses and access to historical polling data. Pro version is around ~$55 AU.

How do I set up a poll?

Just follow these 7 easy steps

Who’s using it at Curtin?

ParticiPoll has been trialled in the Faculty of Science and Engineering in various units.

Here’s what an academic, new to questioning strategies in class, had to say about using ParticiPoll

“Just want to share my excitement with you. The polling system works fine this morning. It brought so much fun to the class, especially to me I think.”

Who can I contact for support ?

Contact Diana Taylor (FLET-SciEng) or your local FLETeam to show you the ropes and get you up and running.

BYOD Polling for student engagement

Curtin Teaching and Learning — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 00:30:56 +0000

Web based polling tools have rejuvenated audience response technologies, providing a quick and easy way to capture student responses within a teaching space. There is no need to provide each student with a clicker in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environment.

Why should you Poll your students?

To capture student responses

Poll tools keep a record of responses and can provide statistical reports.

To gauge student understanding:

Pose questions directly related to the content of your unit.

To stimulate student thinking through meaningful questions:

With standard MC question types it’s easy to fall back on asking factual questions. There are a variety of tools that offer around 7 different question types.
Ask questions that will prompt higher order thinking such as “What if?” questions, or create problem based questions that require students to apply a rule or evaluate a scenario.

As an opportunity for students to gain insight into the views of their peers:

Some tools provide real time responses
This can enhance the students reflection process

To feed-forward: enabling you to take action based on student responses

A great opportunity for continual improvement

What tool should I use?

There are many different polling and quiz tools available, each with their own feature set. We are currently promoting the use of ParticiPoll.

Free (core functionality)
Offers MC question types
Integrates with PowerPoint slides
Offers Plug-in to run without administrator rights
Pro version (access to historical polling results and comment question types)

Check out the following blog post to learn how to get up and running with ParticiPoll.

Below is a brief review of some other tools on offer. More information about Google forms and Nearpod follow after.

Tool	Cost	Question types	Create via	Interact via
BB Polls	FreeReq’s Facebook login	Multiple Choice	Web browser or mobile app	Mobile app, Req’s Facebook login
Poll Everywhere	Free* limited to 40 users	MC, text, images, hotspots & LaTeX formatting	Web browser	App, Twitter & web via Keyword or code input.PowerPoint integrationreq’s desktop app
mQlicker	varied	MC, text, number entry	Web browser, question bank. Complicated user interface	All platforms
Nearpod(also a presentation tool)	Free limited to 30 users upgrade for more features	MC, Draw it, Poll & Quiz formats	Via app or web browser	Multi platform app and web browser
Google forms	Free unlimited use	MC, text, slider, check box, grid, choose from list	Web browser	Web broswer

Google forms

http://www.google.com/google-d-s/createforms.html

This tool is designed to collect data but it can be utilised as an educational tool for polling and branched questioning.

You will need a Google account
All interaction is web based
When logged into Google forms (drive) it is very easy to create questions on the fly
Ability to edit questions on the fly
User responses are stored in a spreadsheet
Users are not required to be logged in to access the form
Form is not private – those that have access to the link can complete the form
Ability for users to see previous responses
Responses are not associated to user name i.e. totally anonymous
You can share the form via a tweet/link
There are 7 different question types
Ability to embed images and YouTube videos
Ability to redirect users to specific pages based on their response i.e branched questioning
No need to install software
Free and unlimited use

Here is a sample poll just for this article

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WkrK19m5SxTXkOQRxdw7WYDkrdz-15jhxq1Y_iOJHTQ/viewform

Nearpod

http://www.nearpod.com/

This is a novel presentation tool that pushes slides and online resources to student devices and also integrates poll and quiz questions. It definitely has a wow factor that will capture your students’ attention.

Ability to sign in using a Google account or new account
Though easy to use it takes a few steps to setup a new presentation
Published presentations can not be reused; they must be duplicated and republished
Students access presentation/quiz via a unique access code available at the time of making it live
Offers polling and quiz question structures – polling results can be shared and visible to users whereas quiz results are private
Offers novelty draw it tool – the ability to submit a drawing using the pen tool or submit a photo from the camera or camera roll
No need to install presenter machine software
Free version only allows for synchronous participation
Licensed version allows for “homework” asynchronous participation

Or check out this case study

If you would like more information or assistance in implementing similar types of activities in your teaching and learning feel free to contact the FLET-SciEng team via email.

Curtin Teaching and Learning » BYOD