There's a range of applications out there which enable you to collect votes on things and display the results. Great for research as people much prefer clicking on-line to filling out paper forms, and you get to see the results instantly.

Polls Boutique has lots of ready-made examples and you can also create your own, with pictures too. What fun! You and your students may be distracted by the thousands of other polls available on this bright and cheerful site but, before you do, check out the opportunities to add videos, voice snippets, images etc to your poll and to see who voted for what. OK so this won't suit everybody but it'll make some of you smile.

Polldaddy has a nice interface and the results are ideal for web site use or inclusion on a VLE or course page.

PollEverywhere is very simple to set up and has the extra feature that enables people to vote using their mobiles with the results being updated live. Looks cool on a whiteboard!

ZohoPolls is possibly the best for serious web users and includes a very nice 'star rating' option that is really complicated to make any other way!