Classroom clickers are a piece of educational technology that allows you to get your students more involved. You put up a question on your computer and students use the classroom clickers to vote in their answers.
SMART technologies has a SMART Response student response system (formerly called Senteo) that has caught my attention.
I’ve heard people talking about clickers before, but it wasn’t until I visited Brian Aspinall’s website after he left a comment that I did some more research. Essentially you can post a question and have students click in their response using individual remote controls. You can set up questions using the SMART software (or Powerpoint, I believe.)
Questions seem to be multiple choice type questions. The SMART website does say it allows numeric responses, but I’m not sure whether than means you’re choosing answer 1, 2, 3 or 4, or whether you can enter in open ended numeric responses to a math question (i.e. 1, 234 dollars.) Judging by the pie-graph type response shown in their picture, it’s probably limited to accepting multiple-choice answers.
Students can log into the system or use the clicker anonymously. Gradebook software is provided and you can create class reports.
Having said that I’m not sure the SMART Student Response system is worth the money.
A media release from SMART technologies’ website for 2007 lists the suggested (educational) retail price of the 32 unit pack at $1,999 USD (approx $62 per unit) and the 24 unit pack at $1599 (approx $66 per unit). They also sell the SMART Response system in packs of 5 clickers.
Are we just paying two thousand dollars for a digital way to get students to raise their hands? Maybe, maybe not.
- You could use the anonymous mode so that students are more open to given their response. But,you could also have students write their responses on a slip of paper and hand that into the front.
- You could use the notebook software to keep track of student responses and marks. But, you could also just give a paper-and-pencil quiz.
- Is this classroom technology for technology’s sake, or does it actually improve the pedagogy and instructional practice?
Ultimately it comes down to whether you want classroom technology to allow you to move at the speed of thought. If you already teach with a data projector and powerpoint on a regular basis, is it that far removed to have students vote with a remote control console instead of a slip of paper? Will this be the technology edge that helps to engage the struggling boys in your class?
Sure, we could record our marks in a binder, but you can also use Excel or gradekeeping software to do that. Given that our students are growing up in a digital age, SMART Response clickers seem to be a natural evolution. Except for the price.
There are three things that keep us from rushing out and investing the money on this classroom technology:
- Price: $2000 for a class set of clickers is a lot of money. For that kind of money, you could get several LCD Data projectors to use in the classroom.
- Time. Brian points out that “you cannot move onto the next question until everyone is done with the previous question.” That means you have to spend time waiting for everyone to answer before you move on.
- Response options. You can only enter multiple-choice responses; you can’t type in a different response or answer. Although that might be good for EQAO style questions, it doesn’t encourage open-ended responses.
What would the ideal interactive student response system be for you?
We’re dreaming of a class-set of student laptops wired to the internet. Here’s what we’re currently thinking:
- Students could type in responses instead of being limited to multiple choice responses because of the SMART technology.
- You could use twitter to get a live feed of student responses to display using the classroom data projector. (Individual students would see the replies in their twitter accounts. The downside is that it’s harder to moderate / remove inappropriate comments.)
- You could use the comment system on a blog to get a live feed. (Sharon at the cluttered desk posted a comment on Brian’s blog about her views on unmoderated student comments. Instead of comments requiring teacher moderation, she allows the comments to go live right away – but monitors them to remove any inappropriate content. Set up a private WordPress blog that only your students can comment on (or even see) and you could have a live feed in your class.)
- Use a wiki as the collaboration tool to allow digital classroom interactivity. (The only down side is that wikispace’s technology to merge simultaneous edits on the same post is a little finicky. In theory it’s supposed to allow simultaneous edits by consolidating changes from different sections. In practice, we haven’t found it to merge the different edits, but rather simply adopt the last person’s edits.)
Sure a class set of laptops is considerably more expensive than a class set of clickers, but you can do a heck of a lot more.
Do you use clickers in the classroom? Do you consider them to be a worthwhile investment?
Julia July 9, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Hello, Mr Kuroneko.
I teach fourth grade. I actually began using the clickers at the end of the school year last year, so I am looking forward to using them more often. I would love to know how easy/difficult it is to move everything over to the clickers. It will be very difficult to do that in my situation until I have my own set. My principal is talking about working on a grant in the near future for us to have our own set. I would love to at least begin using them for my math assessments.
Julia
Joanie G September 8, 2011 at 8:50 pm
I received a set of CPS clickers last year and have had a wonderful experience with them. My students get immediate results regarding where they stand on content skills. I have used the teacher led option in which you are not able to move to the next question until each student is ready. I find the student paced option a great way to give students much needed “think time”. The various report options that are at my fingertips have cut my data crunching time out. I can very easily level differentiate lessons to meet the needs of individual students. I would like to know how easy it is to move items over to CPS also.
classroomtechnology September 8, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Hey Joanie, thanks for the reply. We have two class sets of Clickers that we can sign out, but they don’t get used as much as I’d like to see them used. I agree with you – they’re a great way to get immediate feedback about your classes. I just wish there was a way to combine response data for the same set of questions administered to a few different classes. We’ve had to export the data into excel and manipulate the info there… Too bad you couldn’t do it in the software itself to use the graphing features.
Out of curiosity,what are you trying to bring into CPS?
Joanie G September 10, 2011 at 8:29 pm
I have not tried to bring anything thus far. I saw the question from the previous post and it just got me thinking.
Each of the four Communication Arts teachers in my middle school have a set of clickers. Then we have a couple sets for everyone to share. Those also do not get used very often. I know the teachers in my building are uninterested in spending more time playing with something new. We already have to much on our plates.
Thinking of your problem…what about creating one account and have all of the classes you want to see data on added to this same account. Would it be possible to then compare classes to one another without exporting to excel?
classroomtechnology September 11, 2011 at 6:12 pm
My first thought was that if you were fortunate enough to have multiple sets of Clickers, then if you assigned a different clicker number to each student, you should be able to combine the data because the clicker IDs were all unique. Now, I’m thinking it wouldn’t matter because you’d have two separate data entries because you ran the activity at two separate times (I.e. Once in the morning with your first class, and then later in the afternoon with the second class…) I’m pretty sure the eInstruction software only allows you to look at one data set at a time. I’m not in front of my laptop now so I can’t play with the software… I seem to recall an option to merge data but maybe my problem was that I used the same clicker set between two classes which couldn’t be merged.
If you have multiple class sets of Clickers, then I wonder if you have enough Clickers to do an activity during an assembly. Now, that would be student engagement!
Kyle S. July 22, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Hello, Mr. Kuroneko!
I am a 5th-grade teacher, and have been using the SMART Response Remotes for over 3 years. I feel, without a doubt, that the remotes are one of the best things to happen to my classroom. While your concerns are absolutely valid, I feel the positives outweigh the negatives ten-fold.
SMART Response has allowed me to create a class list and tag each student (ELL, Reading Level, Gender, etc.). Not only can I immediately see student results and trends, I can identify the students who I must reach in different ways. For instance, if I look at my results and I see that my ELL students struggled with the assessment or review, I can self-evaluate and see what I can do better to help them understand the content. Perhaps I need more pictures, or I need to spend more time with their prior knowledge. The data that is given by the program, whether the assessment was done months in advance or on the fly, is a selling point for me. I can easily create charts and graphs with data to show parents and students at conference time, and I can keep the trend data throughout the school year to see growth.
In regards to the comment about students having to wait, I can understand the concern, as I had the same concern. However, depending on how it is done, this can be avoided. Through creating a new assessment in advance (make sure there is a cover page), the teacher can allow the students to work at their own pace. On the remotes, the students will see all numbers for the assessment, as well as the type of question it is (multiple choice, T/F, Yes/No, Number). I then hand out laminated tests that I have made that the students can use dry-erase markers on. Students then transfer their answers to the SMART Response Remote. Answers are not final until they click on submit twice. Until that point, they are free to go back and check their work, just as they would with paper and pencil.
Students are much more engaged in learning when they know I can view answers immediately. I can also use each slide (if I choose to work it that way) as a teachable moment and show the students the class results for that question, literally a second after all students answer. If I see students are struggling, I can easily have them turn and talk, and I can modify the file on the fly and do enrichment to follow. While yes, laptops or iPads for each student would be fantastic, until we all get the funding (especially in our district), SMART Response Remotes have added a dimension to learning and teaching that would be completely unheard of in a classroom that has not yet experienced using them.
classroomtechnology July 22, 2012 at 10:37 pm
Hi Kyle,
Thanks for the detailed response on this post. It’s interesting for me to read my thoughts from two years ago in this post (2009) to see how my attitudes have changed (2012). I agree with a lot of your comments – I like how you’re using data to identify areas of need and how the data helps you identify patterns of need based on language, gender, etc. I also like how the feedback is immediate.
I’m still scratching my head about the closed nature of the questions (i.e. multiple choice, true false, number) – our newer model of clickers that we have at school allow for short answer text messages, but I find while some students are very good at texting responses, other students are technophobic to the point that the clicker hinders their ability to answer.
Recently our school acquired a scantron machine which is very good at scoring multiple choice bubble sheet response cards… Like clickers, but students get the responses the next day. I like the idea of clickers and scantrons, but it means you have to restrict your questions to those that can be answered in a multiple choice format. Good for some things, but not necessarily everything.
Then again, as much as I love laptops and iPads and the ability to ask open-ended questions, in some ways clickers are better. Sure, you can use something like PollEverywhere on your laptop / iPad, but the problem with using the internet is that students can also google the answer. That’s the problem I faced this year.
I guess ultimately it comes down to finding the right tool for the right situation. Thanks for sharing your two-cents. Out of curiosity, do you have your own class set of clickers, or is it a school set that you have to sign out and borrow?
Cheers, Kisu.