Poll Everywhere is an online service that allows you to poll an audience through text-messaging. The polling mechanism is quite simple (and therefore easy for audiences to use): every answer in your poll has a unique number, and audience members text that number to Poll Everywhere’s 6-digit short code. The real magic occurs next, as you and your audience watch the results roll in, live.

I’ve been saying “audience,” but what I really have in mind is “students.” You ask your students a question, they respond, and the results appear instantly and anonymously. The survey graphs dynamically resize themselves according to the latest results, which is quite fun to watch as a group. Pedagogically-speaking, Poll Everywhere is similar to clickers in the classroom, but it uses technology most students already have—their cell phones. From the professor’s perspective all it…

Read More