Yingying MENG

 In this 90min class the teacher will be teaching 30 college students of intermediate English level. The goal of the teacher would be to choose topics that would be of interest to the students, relevant to their life experience and be presented and integrated to classroom teaching using authentic materials from newspapers, magazines, social network systems etc.; incorporate text voting with the activities; familiarize the students with necessary words and vocabularies; facilitate group discussions; display and analyze the poll result with the classroom. The lesson plan concentrates on language acquisition and socio-cultural integration.

The considerations of using poll-everywhere are as follows:

1. RELIABILITY: The concept is to use the simplest and most reliable tool to avoid or limit any potential threats like breakdowns, which tend to happen for almost every cell phone applications and internet-dependent electronics which would pose threat to the smooth transition of classroom activities. The fact that texting depends on telecommunication instead of internet is another guarantee of this purpose.

The standpoint of the class is not to introduce the most advanced, complicated or innovative application into the classroom but the most practical reliable and effective mobile device integration which will be applicable in the majority of the countries in the world.  A study by Ambra Neri, Catia Cucchiarini and Helmer Strik(2002) on technology on language ability training showed that “the choices made in these systems seem to result from a technology push, rather than from a demand pull”. Technology itself should not be the centerpiece of the classroom so much so as to lose the focus on the goal of language acquisition.

2. ACCESSIBILITY/Affordability: This design takes into consideration classrooms in regions that do not have enough tablets for everyone. In Asia, data collected among youths aged between 12 and 17 in Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo in 2007 show that 96% of the teens being internet users, and having 6 years of computer experience on average. (2010) Nevertheless, teachers should take into consideration the minority of students that are not as privileged to include the maximum of the students as possible.
3. SIMPLICITY: Cell phone as a personal device requires no training in using the texting function. No preparation time is required. No need to worry about different operation platforms either.
4. INSTANT FEEDBACK: Poll-everywhere does a wonderful job through the integration of the most accessible device and can be used to assemble and provide prompt feedback on the screen. This also saves a lot of time for the teachers so that they don’t have to spend much time doing the calculations of the scores and making graphic charts of the results, especially when it comes to big classrooms. It also provides more information and student responses than clickers at the cost of nothing.
5. BATTERY SUSTAINABILITY: Cell phones, compared with 3 hours’ battery sustainability for PC could be much more dependable.
6. ECONOMICAL: No extra infrastructure or maintenance is needed. This is out of consideration of both its feasibility and institutional ecosystem.
7. ANONYMITY: The application will gather responses from individual students, match or group them anonymously, and report outcomes confidentially to each student through tailored settings.

The incorporation of the technology into the lesson plan will still focus on language acquisition:

1. Vocabulary checking:

When it comes to big classes, the answers from the students will be greater in number and more varied in content. When the poll is done anonymously, the possible rise of inappropriate answers should be dealt through sift function in the settings or simply a warning ahead telling the students that the sender of the inappropriate message will be disclosed despite the previous anonymous agreement.

1. Debatable questions discussed through brainstorming of a big class will give everyone more ideas, perspectives and solutions. Students are generally interested to see the answers from other students too.
2. Number-sensitive: The fact that the application can generate instant result and calculation serves the class in a revolutionary way above augmentation.
3. Real communication: this lesson plan sees poll-everywhere as augmentation and even substitution in some aspects but focuses primarily on real communication. It would lose the goal of language learning if the whole class were to be turned into silent texting and result presenting.

I have all the confidence that this lesson plan can be easily applied in real classroom and generate good results. This could not be done through with only computers and thus not applicable for MALL application. My classmates’ presentations gave me the idea of using poll-everywhere to suggest topics of interest to the students at the end of the class. The only concern is that a projector in the classroom is a must and the effects would be much compromised if the results are shown from the teacher’s small laptop screen.

Reference

Lin, W. Y., Cheong, P. H., Kim, Y. C., & Jung, J. Y. (2010). Becoming citizens: Youths’ civic uses of new media in five digital cities in East Asia. Journal of adolescent research.

Neri, A., Cucchiarini, C., & Strik, H. (2002). Feedback in computer assisted pronunciation training: technology push or demand pull?. In INTERSPEECH

Appendix:

About polleverywhere

http://www.polleverywhere.com/