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Audience response made easy: using personal digital assistants as a classroom polling tool
Anil S Menon1, Shannon Moffett, Melissa Enriquez
1Office of Information Resources and Technology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. asmenon@stanford.edu.
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA
|February 7, 2004
Summary
Interactive polling using personal digital assistants (PDAs) enhances student engagement and provides valuable teaching feedback. This technology offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional audience response systems in the classroom.
Area of Science:
- Educational Technology
- Medical Education
Background:
- Interactive classrooms benefit both teachers and students by improving engagement and providing feedback.
- Existing audience response systems face limitations in cost and deployment.
- Personal digital assistants (PDAs) offer a cheaper, accessible alternative for classroom interaction.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the effectiveness of using PDAs for interactive polling in a histology class.
- To assess student enthusiasm and gather technical feedback on PDA-based polling.
Main Methods:
- A summer histology class of 12 students was equipped with PDAs and wireless Bluetooth cards.
- Teachers used a central server to display multiple-choice questions via a web page.
- Students responded to questions using their PDAs, with responses compiled and displayed in real-time.
Main Results:
- Student surveys indicated significant enthusiasm for the PDA polling tool.
- The system facilitated immediate compilation, analysis, and display of student responses.
- Technical feedback was collected for future system improvements.
Conclusions:
- PDA-based interactive polling is a viable and engaging tool for enhancing classroom learning.
- This method provides immediate feedback to instructors and boosts student participation.
- Further refinement based on user feedback can optimize the technology for broader educational applications.