"Turn Your Cell Phones on": Mobile Phone Polling as a Tool for Teaching Information Literacy

Authors

Andy Burkhardt, Champlain CollegeFollow
Sarah Faye Cohen, Champlain CollegeFollow

Subjects

Mobile; instruction; information literacy; cell phones; inquiry based learning; pedagogy; first year college students; libraries; instructional technology

Document Type

Research Article

Abstract

While mobile technologies are ubiquitous among students and increasingly used in many aspects of libraries, they have yet to gain traction in information literacy instruction. Librarians at Champlain College piloted mobile phone polling in a first-year classroom as a less expensive and more versatile alternative to clickers. By utilizing a technology that virtually all students have in their pockets librarians found that it increased engagement from previous iterations of the session. In addition, by asking poll questions about students' experiences, librarians were able to facilitate in-depth inquiry into information literacy topics. Ultimately, from direct experience in over 30 different classes, we found that mobile phone polling is a useful tool for any librarian to have in their pedagogical toolbox.

DOI

10.15760/comminfolit.2013.6.2.128

Downloads prior to this publication

2464

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/22435

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Burkhardt, A., & Cohen, S. F. (2013). "Turn Your Cell Phones on": Mobile Phone Polling as a Tool for Teaching Information Literacy. Communications in Information Literacy, 6 (2), 191-201. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2013.6.2.128