IPAL

Owned by Adam Dinnes
Last updated: Jul 02, 2020 by Amy Pfeifer (Unlicensed)
5 min read

Overview

The ipal (In-class Polling for All Learners) activity module enables a teacher to design and set polling sessions consisting of multiple choice, true-false, and essay question types. IPAL questions may be used in a quiz and vice versa. Ready to use questions may also be obtained from the ComPADRE database.

The dynamic graphs displayed below the questions can be toggled from spreadsheet view (including student names) to an anonymous display of the answers for the active question -- a histogram for multiple choice questions and a one-line display for essay questions. While polling is on, a question may be answered multiple times until a second question is sent or polling is turned off.

A question may be sent more than once. The spreadsheet view displays the most recent answer submitted at any time.

Polling may be used * To increase student involvement and participation * To gauge student understanding and guide the pace of the class. * To promote greater verbal classroom discussion.



Contents



Features

General Features

  • Start and stop polling with a click of a button.

  • Adding questions (Click on Add/Edit Questions button)

  •  

    • From questions already in the question bank

    • From questions that the teacher creates

    • Obtain ready-to-use questions from ComPADRE

    • A generic multiple-choice and generic essay (short answer) question is created automatically. These can be used when the question is given verbally or in another program.

    • A “question” link beside each question which displays what students will see. (In the Add/Select question page, this link is the preview icon )

    • The questions can be sent in any order.

    • Each time the question is sent, it clears out the histogram or response view but not the data in the spreadsheet view.

    • Add “Attendance Questions” if the Moodle attendance module is being used.

  • If a student responds more than once to a “Sent” question, only the last response is displayed.

  • Responses can come from students’ web-enabled devices and/or IPAL Apps in the same session.

  • One click of a button upgrades the attendance record for students submitting the correct attendance code.

Histogram features

  • A dynamic, real-time histogram view (anonymous) of student responses to multiple choice and true/false questions.

  • A “graph” view beside each question which displays a static histogram for responses to that question

  • A link below the dynamic histogram which displays the histogram in a new window/tab

  • An indication “Total Responses” of the number of responding students out of all who have responded to any of the polling questions

  • You can disable the ability of students to submit or change answers by clicking the “Stop Polling” button. When you send a question again, there is a new histogram waiting for answers.

  • When an essay question is sent, the “histogram” view no longer displays a histogram, but displays the text responses.

Responses (text answers to essay questions) features

  • A dynamic, real-time responses view (anonymous) of student responses to “essay” questions.

  • Each student’s answer is on a separate line in the window.

  • A “graph” view beside each essay question which displays a static list of the last text response by each student to that question

  • A link below the dynamic window which displays the responses in a new window/tab

  • An indication “Total Responses” of the number of responding students out of all who have responded to any of the polling questions

  • You can disable the ability of students to submit or change answers by clicking the “Stop Polling” button. When you send an essay question again, there is a new window waiting for responses.

  • When a multiple choice or true/false question is sent, the “response” view no longer displays responses but displays a histogram.

Spreadsheet features

  • A dynamic, real-time spreadsheet view showing student names and all student responses to all questions

  • A link below the dynamic spreadsheet view that displays the spreadsheet view in a new window/tab.

  • You can disable the ability of students to submit or change answers by clicking the “Stop Polling” button. All data is retained and available when you “Start Polling” again. (This can work as a timer.)

  • At any time you can drag over the spreadsheet, copy it, and paste it into a program like Excel.(You may have to use “Paste special – unicode text”)



IPAL for Students

The IPAL activity will allow a student to respond to questions in class. Responses may be given from a laptop, tablet, smartphone, or clicker.

Accessing the IPAL Activity

  1. Go to the Moodle site and log in.

  2. The course or courses in which you are enrolled will be presented in the My Courses block. Click into your course.

  3. Click on the polling activity created by your teacher and wait for a questions to be sent (image below).

IPAL Mobile Apps

Android and iOS IPAL apps are available.

App Setup

Download, install and open the app and enter the following settings:

  1.  

    1. The main URL for the Moodle site (for example, http://www.yourcollege.edu/moodle)

    2. The student’s user name for Moodle at that site

    3. The student’s password for Moodle at that site

    4. The “access code” for the IPAL instance.

  • The first three values do not need to be entered again, unless the value of one or more of them changes. Each IPAL instance has a unique “access code” and must be entered each time.

  • When students use a browser, the question displayed automatically changes when the teacher sends a new question. With the older versions of the Apps, the student must refresh the display to obtain a new question. This is corrected in the newer versions of the Apps. Images are displayed in the text of questions on browsers, but the current version does not display images on the screen of smart phones using the App.



Using IPAL

Adding the IPAL Activity



  1. Turn editing on.

  2. Locate the topic section in which you want to create a polling activity (an IPAL session or instance). From the Add an activity menu, select IPAL and click the Add button.

  3. You will need to give the polling session a name. The description is optional. The name will be what students see when they come to the course page. When this is done, click Save and Return to Course.

Adding Questions to the IPAL Activity

You may create questions manually or import them from the ComPADRE site.

Creating Questions Manually

  1. The link to your IPAL session will be displayed on the course page. However, you still need to select some questions to be used for polling. Click on the activity link to do so.

  2. In the page that appears you can add or create some questions by clicking on the Add/Change Questions button.

  3. If you created any questions previously, they will be displayed in the "Add Questions" area. This will be familiar for anyone who has used the Moodle Quiz activity. There are buttons that allow you to create questions. Only multiple choice, true false, or essay (short text response) questions can be used.