Will texting help student learning? A case study of using mobile devices in university classrooms

The use of Student Response Systems (SRS) has been shown to increase student attendance, participation, and learning. Prevailing systems at universities are typically SRS that require installation of software by the university and purchasing of “clickers”. Thus, the adoption of SRS usually requires a sizable initial investment. Given the diffusion of mobile phones and wide-spread use of mobile technology by students, the possibility of using them as a cost-effective alternative to clickers is attracting more attention. The emergence of audience response systems hosted in the cloud instead of being physically connected to a computer triggered WPI faculty and staff to explore the use of mobile technology as a response tool through Poll Everywhere. First, we present our motivations for adopting this technology (limited clicker supply, desire for open-ended response option, etc.). Second, using our experience in the classroom and findings from extant literature, we make suggestions related to course design to enable faculty to take full advantage of cloud-based SRS. We evaluate whether students concur with our perceived benefits of Poll Everywhere in terms of ease of use and facilitation of learning. We close with discussion and suggestions for future research.