...though I realize my responses are starting to make it look that way.
I was slightly confused by this activity because there are lots of different ways to use a cell phone, not just polling. I already use my cell phone in the course frequently, whenever I am outside my home during office hours, to send and receive real time calls with students. However, I would never use it as polling tool A) because I don't use polls very often and B) my learning platforms all already have built in tools I can use to make polls as part of the class, if I was to desire one. So, when I chose “maybe” as a result on this poll, I meant I would be using my cell phone, but not in this particular way (I felt that was splitting the difference 50/50).
Why do I not usually use polls? Because they usually don't provide detailed information on either end of the poll. As a case in point, note how I found this poll unclear/overly limiting in its interpertation of cell phone use. My teaching style is all about targeted intervention. If a student wants help, they need to contact me and tell me specifically (within their ability to do so) what they need help with. Then I can personalize my response, targeting it to that particular student's needs, which I find to be more effective in most cases. If a poll told me six students needed help with subject verb agreement, should the whole class have to go through a lesson on it? What if all six students don't need help with the same aspect of the problem? A generic response might help only some, or none of them. What about different types of learning styles? In one of my classes there was a discussion board activity that was sort of like a poll, where students had to list their two biggest writing weaknesses. I did think this provided lots of helpful information but because it was a discussion board students were able to able to add a little bit more detail than one or two words. So, should the student who listed subject verb agreement contact me about it later, I could already have a clue about what their particular difficulty was and how best to help them. Further, students were able to back and forth with each other and with me in the forum about their lists so even more information was being generated. The one and done (and possibly anonymous as well) aspect of the poll seems limiting to me, like starting a conversation and then breaking it off right away.
As far as texting or sending messages via cell phone, I think online courses mean, for instructors and students both, that you should be able to go to class any time, not that you should be in class all the time. My google voice number gets turned off when I don't feel like talking to students (don't worry, they can still leave voice mails). I would feel texting students and sending things to their phones to be an invasion of their privacy. Their time is their own unless they've chosen to log into the course or contact me. The only time I would ever initiate syncronous contact with a student without their request is if they were in serious danger of failing the course—hadn't logged in for weeks, been caught cheating, etc. and, even then, I usual send at least one email first requesting a phone conference before jumping right into calling. My point is that, if I wanted to use a poll, I would put it inside the course so the student would access it as part of their class time, instead of on their phone where it might turn into a part of their work or personal time.
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