Interactive Voting Systems

I spent today at the Dunblane Hydro hotel on a workshop looking at the use of the Turning Point interactive response system. I didn’t have a very good start to the day as my laptop has died again. At least I had my Mac in the car as well.

The first part of the workshop focussed on creating basic questions using the Turning Point package. Turning Point is downloaded from the Turning Point website and can be installed in both Mac and PC formats. The Mac version is at a fairly early stage of development so does not have as many options as the PC version. It is also worth noting that the PC version is struggling to cope with Office 2007.

There is a wide variety of question types available including questions with a correct answer which are displayed in a chart or to look for opinion in a range and true / false and yes / no questions.

Questions can be created which use pictures rather than text for the options. This allows the possibility for use with younger children. The keypad only has numbers on it but it would be possible to cover the number keys with different coloured dots and then use these on the screen for each question.

After coffee there was a discussion about the use of questioning in the class and how high order questioning can be encouraged. Where a question allows pupils to agree or disagree with a particular question then it is possible to start to think about giving pupils confidence in defending their position. The presenter discussed the possibility of using Bloom’s taxonomy to start to look in more depth at higher order question.

The example used was the story of the three little pigs. The sorts of questioning that would go up the taxonomy might look like this:

• Evaluation – What would you have done?
• Synthesis - Can you think of a different ending?
• Analysis – Which part did you like best?
• Application – What would you have done / built your home from?
• Comprehension – How did the pig manage to blow down the two homes?
• Knowledge or recall – What happened in the story?

Discussion questions
As part of the workshop we discussed a couple of questions on how the system could be used.

1. What areas of the curriculum lend themselves to the use of response systems?
• Opportunity to comment on areas that you do not feel comfortable speaking out about such as discussions in RME
• Circle time type questions in PSE and citizenship
• Knowledge recall in any area of subject specialisation
• Story writing as a class where the children get to choose where the next step of the story might go.
• Science investigations where the children could vote on what they think will happen in a particular experiment before they actually do the practical task.
• Behaviour management where a question is asked twice, the first before a discussion and then ask the question again after the discussion.
• Pupils could use the system as the outcome of a piece of group work where they then present to the rest of the class.
• Where groups work together to come to a shared understanding of a topic and then the group respond to the question rather than working individually.
• It is possible to make the responses anonymous so that questions can be answered anonymously with answers which are of a personal nature. This could include areas such as child protection, safety, bullying, etc.

2. Are there any generic styles of question that could be applied across a number of curricular areas?
• It is very hard to see where this might be appropriate. Part of the question might suggest a way of short circuiting the development process and could short circuit the preparation of appropriate questions.
• It might be possible to create a series of answers which could then be used with a series of different questions.
• Within assessment for learning it is possible to use the system to carry out traffic lighting in order to gauge understanding.
• It could be related to the sharing of learning objectives at he start of the session and then at the end.
• It could be possible to look at learning styles as a precursor to further learning activities.

It is possible to create a group which is known as a participant list. This is a straight forward task which then means you can identify the individual responses against particular pupils or groups. A response table can be placed at the foot of the screen to allow you to see who has and has not yet responded. A huge amount of data can be gathered very quickly which can be fed into a report and used as a basis for discussion or for looking at diagnosis in relation to next steps in learning. The reports can be exported into Excel, etc to allow for further analysis of the data gathered. What you do with the reports as a teacher raises a number of important questions which need to be thought through by anyone using a system such as this. It is a good idea to set up some of the questions at the start to gather some demographic information. This can then be used to gain an idea of what sorts of people are responding in a particular way.

Part of the problem of using any system such as this is ensuring that you are actually doing what you think you are doing.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
George Bernard Shaw

Conclusion
There was not enough time to explore all the aspects of the system. Will I use a system such as this? I think I can see lots of opportunities where this would be useful. One of the areas of use relates to the evaluation of delivery of a staff development opportunity. I think the first sort of area I will use it in will be to gauge opinion in different areas. The great thing about today is that I now have a test set of Turning Point to go away with and try out for myself. That should keep me busy for a wee while!