Over the last week my class have been voting for their new wordpress theme on our class blog. We decided upon 5 themes including the current one and I set up a poll on our wikispace so that the class could vote for their favourite. I used PollDaddy to create the poll and embedded it into our wiki cover page, with some little thumbnails of the themes to help the kids remember. It was a great way for the children to personalise their blog and to make a contribution.

I have been astounded by the response – I deliberately left the voting open to multiple votes just to give a it a bit more scope. I expected the kids to enjoy doing it but the response was so far beyond my expectations!

There were 2567 total votes!!  Take a look.

It seemed a small campaign sprung to life during my lunchtime bloggers clubs on Thursday and Friday! Children were calling for supporters and the two themes that emerged as potential winners battled it out, staunch defenders of one theme soon caved in to the massive pressure and swapped sides cancelling out their previous votes.

China Red emerged the winner with 62% of the vote and 1589 individual votes. So we have a new look.
I know the kids were just voting and voting again, but it was a lot of fun and there was so much buzz about with my kids. I know everyone voted and consequently I now know I could use the polls in other ways.

One boy turned to me, as he repeatedly voted China Red into an insurmountable lead, and said how it would be great if we used these to help decide what we can do in class. So we came up with one idea of having a free hour session late on in the week and setting up a poll with a few options like extra PE or art. Let the children decide what they would like to do. Their own democratic timetable!

So I will be exploring two things and would appreciate any help,

  • Can you embed a similar poll directly into a Learnerblog post – as opposed to doing it on the wiki? (however successful it was)
  • What other curriculum based applications are there for the open use of a poll such as this?