Let me take a moment to paint the picture of what happened in my 7th period 8th grade science class. Mr. H, the 8th grade assistant principal, was in my room and as the students came in I asked them to take out their cell phones, those that didn’t have them went back to their locker to get them. The looks on their faces … priceless!! The students looked at me and then look at Mr. H … one finally said “are you for real?” … “COMLETLY!!” After assuring them that it wouldn’t cost them any texts, I had them texted in the answer to the question on the board.
It was like texting in votes for American Idol. As the answers came, they could see the answers up on the board! AMAZING MOMENT IN THE CLASSROOM!!
This activity was inspired by an article Mr. H handed out today during our grade level meeting. The article, Speaking Digitally – Cell Phones as a Teaching Tool, mentioned polleverywhere.com. While I had heard and used polleverywhere.com before, I don’t think I know that you could texted in answers. For a quick warm-up, I thought what the heck…give it a try! I wanted Mr. H to be there…after all it was his idea. He helped me re-insure the students that it was okay to have their phones out.
As I taught class, all I wanted to do was play with new amazing tool. By the end of class I was ready to test out the open ended response polls. Very simply I asked the question… do you have any questions about the lesson today? I figured the questions would be silly and simple…well I was WRONG! The student asked real questions that inspired discussion…students even wanted to texted back answer to their peers. I believe because no one knew, not even me, who was asking the questions students were more willing to ask real questions! My students are amazing…I love my JOB!
So now where do I go from here? How do I make sure every student get to participate?
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