Cell phones can do what?

 My Tuesday professor (who is younger than your average college professor by a lot and shows it through her technical prowess) gave me a magazine that features articles by people who are at the forefront of educational technology. I'm paging through it and I find a link to this site:

http://www.polleverywhere.com/

Basically, it's a poll creation tool that allows you to text your answers to a pre-determined generic text number and then the results are displayed real time on a SMART board or a computer screen. Students are able to see what the rest of the class thinks about a particular topic and best of all- it's anonymous. Everyone can participate without the usual fear of getting the "wrong" answer.  It's also free for groups of under 30.

Let's talk about why I love this. First off, most students are unnaturally attached to their cell phones. However, when they come to school every morning their phones are suddenly a criminal object. We take their phones, tell them its wrong to use them and then wonder why there's so much backlash. Put yourself in their shoes. We adults are also in fact, addicted to our phones- but who takes them away from us? People will argue it's because we've learned "acceptable use policies", but judging by the general public that's simply not true.

  If you're using this tool, your students get a chance to use their phone for an educational purpose.
Also, what a way to get class participation up! I know students that are afraid to answer questions simply because of peer pressure, or because they don't want to look "wrong". A poll that tracks answers anonymously is the answer to that. You have the whole classes' opinion and then that turns into a great springboard for discussion. I can see this having practical applications in a health unit (for the tricky sex-ed questions no one wants to talk about), a social studies unit, a science unit, and heck, even in an English unit for controversial text.

  The only downside I can see is really drilling home acceptable use policies for your students. After you've "decriminalized" (as it were) cell phones for classroom use, how do you make sure they stay away? Also, if you're going to implement this tool I think an administrative check would be necessary as well.

Long story short, this is a great way to integrate an every day technology tool into classroom instruction. Kudos to the person who thought of it!