Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Polls in online courses


While I submitted my poll yesterday night,  a thought came into  my mind that polls can be a great tool for students to make choices. Polls are also  called as virtual show of hands and let all students see aggregate totals of how the class thinks on  a particular issue. Poll results help in shaping the opinion and sometimes realizing the limitation of their own choices. At a point of discussion which has become very crucial, poll activates interactivity among the classmates. Polls should provoke research and deeper thinking.
Asynchronous polls are available for learners to vote over a period of time before submitting the votes. Asynchronous polls let learners visit and vote on their own schedule. Synchronous polls have learners pick from a list of alternatives and then see results of the voting. It helps  learners to make real time choices.
For using the poll, instructor has to take into account a few things. The first thing is to make sure that learners know how to vote. The language should be clear and straight. Make sure  test questions can be interpreted as intended. Test the questions with someone and refine if necessary. The polls should display the totals only. The students may hesitate to vote if they feel others can know how they individually voted.
I liked voting for the  Thread Rules Survey because it will help us in finding the best practices related to the thread management. The poll will throw a light on the best practices among the all those were suggested by all class members. Further debating on the each issue would polish the poll result .

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