Abstract
Electronic voting systems (EVS) have enjoyed widespread use in university classrooms since the 1990s, primarily in disciplines such as the STEMM and business subjects. In this narrative account, I explore the adoption of this learning technology within the less well-documented domain of arts and humanities education, incorporating my motivation for starting to use EVS, the development of these teaching activities over time, and their impact on the student learning experience. It outlines several of the many different ways in which EVS has been employed within my classes, including multiple choice questions (MCQs), polls of audience opinion, questions for which there is more than one equally valid answer, and the use of Likert scales, multiple responses, priority ranking, conditional branching, demographic comparison, moment to moment, and text-based responses. It discusses pedagogies associated with EVS such as peer instruction and game-based/team-based learning, addresses some of the reasons that may hitherto have discouraged arts and humanities teaching from embracing EVS more wholeheartedly, and considers the use of EVS in tandem with other learning technologies including lecture capture, flipped teaching, and online discussion forums. Finally, it offers advice (much of it transferrable to disciplines beyond the arts and humanities, as well as beyond higher education itself) on a range of pedagogical and technological issues for the benefit of those contemplating the adoption of EVS in their teaching, and reflects on the future potential of EVS and some of its most recent developments.