For this week's Web 2.0 Wednesday, we're going to have a little fun with polls, which thanks to the joys of advanced technology, can be embedded in just about anything. You're actually going to have two opportunities to play with polls--first by participating in one and second, by creating one of your own. Of course, as always, what you choose to do is up to you.
Participate in a Poll!
Last week I asked for you to play with some online graphic and logo generator options to create a Web 2.0 Wednesday logo. We had several entries, so I set up a wiki page that includes all of them, along with a poll for you to vote for your favorite. So your first task is to go to the wiki and place your vote:
As Web 2.0 Wednesday activities go, it doesn't get much easier than this, so please be sure to cast your vote!
Create Your Own Poll
If you're feeling like you want to delve into something a little more advanced, why not create your own poll? Two tools I've used are Poll Daddy (which I used for the logo contest) and Vizu. Both work well for simple polls and are easy to embed into a blog or wiki. If you have other suggestions, feel free to post them in comments.
As for what you want to ask in your poll-that's up to you. I've found that people tend to respond better to fun kinds of questions or to topical issues that seem to be making the rounds. And if you're looking for some general how-to's on online polling, this tip sheet (PDF) has some decent info.
That's it for this week. Don't forget to vote for your favorite logo and if you end up creating a poll, leave me a link in comments for it.
Hi Michelle,
I created my poll and it was a blast. I can use these for some of my workshops and for general learning/involving/engaging work. The tip sheet link wasn't working. I'd like to get the tip sheet if you can fix the link.
Thanks,
Brent
Posted by: Brent MacKinnon | August 20, 2008 at 05:55 AM
Perfect timing, Michele. I was thinking of a poll or two I wanted to set up over the weekend, and thinking about how to do it, and here you come to my rescue!!!
Posted by: Brett | August 20, 2008 at 06:31 AM
Great timing for me too! I'm setting up a poll in Google Docs using the forms feature. Forms seems to work well, the hard part is coming up with the questions.
Posted by: Claire Thompson | August 20, 2008 at 01:18 PM
Looks like I picked a winner this week in terms of an activity--glad you all enjoyed it. And Brent--I fixed the link. It should be working now. Thanks for the heads up!
Posted by: Michele Martin | August 21, 2008 at 04:32 AM
Hi Michele,
I have been on holidays and just came back to found our last activity. I published the poll both in my blog as our web2.0 Wednesday post and in my new blog, specially written for next school year, as a widget:http://inpi.edublogs.org that's why it is written in Portuguese. If you wish, I can translate it.
I also voted for a cool logo. Thank you for going ahead with our web2.0 Wednesdays! :)
Posted by: inpi | August 24, 2008 at 06:27 AM
Michele, this was an excellent task. I've never taken the time to think about the benefits of polls as a blogger. So I've ended up deciding to do a series of posts for The Edublogger -- discusses why bloggers use polls and looks at how they are used.
Off course the code was stripped out in the feed reader so then my next post looked at solutions to alert readers of a poll while making sure the post still looked ok.
So far I've tried Vizu and Poll Daddy. I like PollDaddy but restricting numbers polled could be an issue.
@Brent Your poll looks nicer than mine :) . I went to leave a comment but you have set your comment setting to only people who have been added to your blog can comment.
Posted by: Sue Waters | August 25, 2008 at 03:35 AM
@Sue--thanks for following up with some additional posts on using polls--very helpful!
Posted by: Michele Martin | August 25, 2008 at 04:35 AM