Presentation given at DevLearn conference on the pedagogical impact or benefits of voting boxes, clickers or audience response system's.

1. Give Your Learners the Extra
Cognitive Boost: Box Them!
Inge de Waard
3 November 2010 – 11 am – 11.40

2. Click fast and win …
a 4GB USB stick at the end of this
session! And a priceless hug from the
presenter 

3. The What
• Clickers
• Audience Response system (ARS)
• Voting boxes

4. The options
• Different brands
• Mobile phone polls for online courses
• Use a web-based survey or quiz software (e.g.
polleverywhere or surveygizmo).
• After you have build your quiz or survey you either
make a QR-code for it (easy to get users to the right
location via their mobile), or you send them a link (use
software that shortens links like TinyURL, for easy
access.
• And ask them to take the survey… simultaneously

5. Let’s go old school & raise hands
• Who likes cats?
• Who likes dogs?
• Who has not raised
their hands?
Difficult to keep track as a teacher: after the
course no useful post-data
(unlike interactions in LMS’s which can help adjusting training or learning)

6. As trainers/teachers we want to
interact & know what is going on

7. Pedagogical reasons to use
voting boxes
• Increases interactivity in the classroom or learning
environment
• It can be used individually or in group (stimulating peer-
to-peer discussion)
• All of the learners must reflect before using it.
• Reflection increases cognitive impulse in all the students
• Thinking is out in the open, no more hiding behind peers

8. Let’s look at 12 benefits!
What does it feel like?
Take your boxes, voting begins…

9. 1. Use it to: gather live information
Create questions and offer them to the learners
in order to get immediate feedback

10. What is your gender?
1. 2.
50%50%1. Female
2. Male

11. What is your age group?
17%
17%
17%17%
17%
17%
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
1. 18 – 25
2. 25 – 35
3. 35 – 45
4. 45 – 55
5. 55 – 65
6. 65 - …

12. 2. Use it to: assess prior knowledge
Picture by ComedyNose TonyNetone

13. Multiple responses:
What do you use your mobile for?
1. Learning
2. Communication
3. Games
4. Augmented reality
Select All That
Apply

14. Multiple responses: What do you use your mobile for?
25%
25%
25%
25%
25%
25%
25%
25%
Augmented r...
Games
Communication
Learning
Female Male

15. 3. Use it to: recall questions from
earlier learning prerequisites
Who has read the material?
Followed by a quick assessment
Picture by TonyNetone

16. 4. Use it to: adjust
teaching speed and topics
Immediate trainer/instructor feedback
Great overall response => move on
Poor overall response => dig into the
content, discuss, adjust

17. 5. Use it to: assess what is learned
after the class or course
If a sub-topic scored low, it can be picked up
again or used in an online spaced education
topic. Understanding can be compared.

18. 6. Use it to: predict the outcome of
an event & link to more information

19. 7. Use it to: let learners indicate
when they finished with a task
• Shows when an assignment or task is completed
• This can be used to motivate completion by
other learners

20. 8. Use it to: vote on topics for
discussion
• Readiness for organizational change can be
measured
• Group discussions can be given a direction by
peers (more participatory topics)
• Vote on which learner’s work is excelling (best
instructional video, best showcase)

21. In order of importance rank your
mobile learning interests?
20%
20%
20%
20%
20%
1 2 3 4 5
1. Educational
Games
2. Mobile Courses
3. Continued
Education
4. Augmented
Reality
5. Communication

22. 9. Use it to: evaluate a class or
course
• Instantaneous evaluation connects with the
quality of immediate feedback
• This can also be used for formatively evaluating
a course or a teaching experiment

23. 10. Use it to: jump to another
viewpoint of a topic
Whenever learners indicate the previous
content was unclear (= measure
confusion)

24. 11. Use it for Socratic questioning
• You do need to link names to the boxes:
“Tell me, why do you think mobile learning
is on the rise?”

25. 12. Use it to: start a contest, yes!
Divide all learners into meaningful groups
(depending on the goal of the contest)
Running against one another
Or turning off boxes with each wrong
answer

26. Extra motivation
• Give an extra point to the most dynamic voter
• Real time tracking to give them an insight of who
knows what and where they fit in

27. What is the adult attention span at
the end of a standard lecture?
1. 3-4 minutes
2. 7-10 minutes
3. 12-15 minutes
4. 18-20 minutes
5. More than 20 minutes
6. I don’t know
3-4m
inutes7-10
m
inutes12-15
m
inutes18-20
m
inutes
M
ore
than
20
m
...Idon’tknow
0% 0% 0%0%0%0%
The "Change-Up" in Lectures
Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish
Teaching Resources Center
Indiana University
Published NTLF, January 2006, Vol. 5, #2

28. Fastest Responders (in
seconds)
0 Participant 1
0 Participant 2
0 Participant 3
0 Participant 4
0 Participant 5

29. So: Increase the quality of your
learners, and box them

30. Possible problems
• A broken voting box
• One learner having access to many boxes
• ID connection fails or is not put in correctly
• But overall, it is safe and quick

31. References for boxing learner’s
• Kay, R.H., Lesage, A. (2009) A strategic assessment of audience
response systems used in higher education. Australasian Journal
of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(2), 235-249.
http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet25/kay.html
• Cain, J., Black, E.P., Rohr J. (2009). An Audience Response
System Strategy to Improve Student Motivation, Attention, and
Feedback. Am J Pharm Educ. 2009 April 7; 73(2): 21 :
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690899/
• Derek Bruff from the Vanderbilt University, Essays on Teaching
Excellence: Toward the Best in the Academy, Volume 21,
Number 3, 2009-10. A publication of The Professional &
Organizational Development Network in Higher Education
(www.podnetwork.org).

32. Contact
E-mail: idewaard@itg.be
Blog: ignatiawebs.blogspot.com (click the ‘mobile’ tag)
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ignatia
Slideshare (ppt): http://www.slideshare.net/ignatia
linkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ingedewaard