Student response systems such as the promethean have become all the rage in many educational technology circles. I have spent many nights dreaming about the difference I could make in the classroom if I had all of the systems that have been modeled to me in my years of teaching only to wake up to the reality that I have two computers in my classroom without internet access. Never being one to become discouraged, I often try to figure out ways in which I can implement state of the art classroom technology in a way that is free or at a fraction of the price of the actual hardware being marketed.
About two years ago a Promethean sales representative came to our school and modeled their instant response system to a few teachers and our administration. Knowing that my administration did not have the money for the system I came up with an idea for a student response system of my own.
As a high school teacher I spend a lot of time enforcing the no cell phone policy at my school. I figured that this was a losing battle and tried to figure out a way to implement cell phone use as a positive force in the classroom. So I decided to ignore the school cell phone policy of my school (much to the dismay of my administration) and began allowing students to use them in my class. For example, you need to send or receive a text just raise your hand and ask. I have found that this policy has actually reduced the cell phone use in my class.
Recently I have had students using their phones as an instant response system in my class. All I did was set up a gmail account and gave all of the students the address. Next I added multiple choice questions and short answer sections to my presentations. Now when one of these slides with questions comes up, students send a text to the email and it is projected on a split screen for the whole class to see. I initially gave a participation grade for correct answers, but have recently began giving quizzes in the same manner.
I have found that implementing this student response system has dramatically increased student attention (because students never know when a quiz question will pop up) and interest in my lessons.
The best part of this whole idea is that it did not cost me or the school one dollar, which now has my school rethinking their cell phone policy.
image courtesy of http://blog.interactiveachievement.com
Check out the link for a wiki on how to set up your own student response system
student response system link
Check out the link for a wiki on how to set up your own student response system
student response system link
