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Audience Response Made Easy: Using Personal Digital Assistants as a Classroom Polling Tool

Affiliation of the authors: Office of Information Resources and Technology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA.

Correspondence: Anil S. Menon, 5121 Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305; e-mail: <asmenon{at}stanford.edu>.

Received for publication: 09/27/03; accepted for publication: 12/08/03.

Both teachers and students benefit from an interactive classroom. The teacher receives valuable input about effectiveness, student interest, and comprehension, whereas student participation, active learning, and enjoyment of the class are enhanced. Cost and deployment have limited the use of existing audience response systems, allowing anonymous linking of teachers and students in the classroom. These limitations can be circumvented, however, by use of personal digital assistants (PDAs), which are cheaper and widely used by students. In this study, the authors equipped a summer histology class of 12 students with PDAs and wireless Bluetooth cards to allow access to a central server. Teachers displayed questions in multiple-choice format as a Web page on the server and students responded with their PDAs, a process referred to as polling. Responses were immediately compiled, analyzed, and displayed. End-of-class survey results indicated that students were enthusiastic about the polling tool. The surveys also provided technical feedback that will be valuable in streamlining future trials.