Using Cell Phones to My Advantage

Recently I was complaining (big surprise) about how I don't know any students who own a homework planner - so the kids never know when there is a test or when assignments are due.

The AP English teacher at my school remarked that he lets his AP kids take out their cell phones so that they can put the info into their calendars. He said something about using the technology, instead of banning it like crazy (but he said this much, much more eloquently - English teacher, after all).

This was an epiphany to me. USING CELL PHONES?? FOR LEARNING?? That's insane ... insanely awesome. IF you can do it right. I'm not sure that I really can, but I am very willing to try it.

So, I'm going to do an experiment tomorrow. My students will text in the answer to a multiple choice question at the beginning of class. I'm using polleverywhere.com to do this - and I can embed the LIVE poll into a powerpoint. I've posted a screenshot below. Also, please don't text in a vote! I need to have a blank slate tomorrow!

Potential problems:

-Not every kid has a cell phone (believe it or not). You can vote by computer, but you can only vote once, so I could only have one kid vote via my laptop in the back of the room.

-It costs money to send text messages. How do I feel about students (ok, students' parents) spending money to answer a question in class?

-If I show the live results, students may be more likely to vote for the more "popular," though not necessarily correct, answer. This happens anyway when I ask "how many people voted for 'A'" and kids look around first before they put their hands up. Potentially though, if I wait until after everyone has voted to show the results, kids could truly vote the way they feel without worrying about being judged, which would be very, very cool.

I'll tell you how it goes.