CEDO 540 Week 2

This week we were to research a few survey tools, both free and paid applications. I've used a few of the free versions for informal polls and surveys in my classes but haven't used one for any statistical purposes yet. The free versions of these tools fits the purpose I need/use them for (polldaddy, polleverywhere, surveymonkey). I did send out a survey at the beginning of the year to assess people's knowledge and interest of various technology applications/tools and did so by creating a Google Form. It might my need just fine. I didn't need to take the results and do any sort of high level analysis besides just looking at who knew how to use what tool and what tool(s) each person wanted to know more about. I'm not sure a paid survey tool would have benefited my purpose.

With that said, like I mentioned in our group response this week when comparing survey tools, it is difficult to really compare the paid vs. free versions of survey applications. It is sort of like comparing apples and oranges. Many of the free versions we checked out had an upgrade; with that upgrade, those applications were basically the same price and had the same features as the other paid versions we looked at. It was "fair" to compare the free versions to the other paid tools because they weren't the same. Also, it is really difficult to make a recommendation for one or two tools because each tool will fit a different purpose. I wouldn't go out and spend $200+ per year to conduct surveys/polls in my classroom but it might be a decent investment for a district/system to do so when conducting a research study or trying to gather information for a larger purpose.