This article is the fourth in a series of five articles about scenarios for mobile learning.
These are linked to an initiative to promote and capture innovation in e-learning.

What is it?

Smart phones can be used with on-campus wireless networks to act as Personal Response Systems (PRS) or ‘clickers’.  The approach can increase interactivity in lectures and provide immediate feedback about student learning and comprehension.

Benefits

There are a range of of benefits:
Quizzes and polls can be used as a warm-up activity, to review content from the previous week, identify areas of poor understanding, or break up periods of content delivery.
Students can test their comprehension, and if problem areas are picked up by lecturers, students are more likely to leave the class having understood the content.
Lecturers don’t have to distribute and gather back clicker devices, and the approach can be used in any teaching context with a networked computer.  Using mobile devices would be cheaper than installing expensive specialist hardware, such as clicker devices and specific routers in lecture theatres.

How it can work

It is possible to set up short one or two question surveys or tests in Blackboard. Students can use their browser or the mobile app to access and take those surveys, and participation of individual students can be tracked. The staff member can display results to the whole class by accessing the Grade Centre’s tools for displaying survey results – but care is needed not to show student marks. External tools such as Google Forms and Poll Everywhere may be quicker and easier to use.

Potential issues

Staff need to set up the surveys ahead of the teaching or have tools where they can quickly set one up, but they may need to change lesson plans during the class in response to poll feedback from students.
There is a risk of accidental exposure of student grades when viewing survey results through the Grade Centre.
There can be delays while the students browse to take the survey, depending on which application is used.  Also if wi-fi capacity cannot support enough simultaneous connections, some student responses may be delayed or blocked. (If a mobile signal is available this may be a workaround).  Lastly, apparent acceptance of mobile devices may lead students to attempt to respond to critical tests e.g. phase tests on their mobile phones, and this is not recommended.

Follow up on this article

1. Share your own mobile learning innovation – and win £500 and a pie/cake!
2. View all five scenarios (download a Word doc).
3. See Educause’s 7 things you should know about clickers