  InkSurvey is free, web-based software designed to facilitate the collection
of real-time formative assessment. Using this tool, the instructor can embed
formative assessment in the instruction process by posing an open-format
question. Students equipped with pen-enabled mobile devices (tablet PCs, iPads,
Android devices including some smartphones) are then actively engaged in their
learning as they use digital ink to draw, sketch, or graph their responses.
When the instructor receives these responses instantaneously, it provides
insights into student thinking and what the students do and do not know.
Subsequent instruction can then repair and refine student understanding in a
very timely manner.
  Although this pedagogical tool is appealing because of its broad theoretical
foundations, the cost of pen-enabled mobile technology was until recently a
significant barrier to widely implementing this teaching model. However, less
expensive tablets, iPads, and Android devices are now filling the market (and
student backpacks) and greatly lowering that barrier.
  To illustrate the wide applicability of this use of technology, we report a
series of seven vignettes featuring instructors of diverse subjects
(mathematics, food chemistry, physics, biology, and chemical engineering), with
students using diverse pen-enabled mobile devices (tablet PCs, iPads, and
Android 4.0 tablets), in diverse educational environments (K-12, community
college, publicly-funded engineering university, private university, graduate
school), in two countries (United States and Mexico). In a companion paper,
each instructor also shares some data, insights, and/or conclusions from their
experiences regarding the effectiveness of this tool.
