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?
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Brian Aspinall from United States
// May 9, 2009 at 2:25 pm
A few details and opinions (and fixes):
1. Questions can be T or F, Y or N, ABCD, 1234 as well as a numeric answer (you can also choose questions to be opinion based – so the results are not necessarily right or wrong).
2. You CAN move onto another question before all students have answered, they are just shown as “skipped” in the results. I wasn’t clear enough before.
3. I argue the clickers are useful for knowledge-based questions and not open response or critical thinking, like you have mentioned. Having said that I wouldn’t feel comfortable using them for true assessment – just diagnostic. There is some pressure when your name is on the SMARTBoard showing you have yet to answer a question, along with a counting timer. Some students will pressure others to answer so we can move on as a group. Your stronger students will answer quickly and be board.
4. Our board owns a few sets which i believe can be signed out by school. Our school just happen to win a set at a PD workshop.
5. They are most useful (I find) during those teachable moments when you expect split results. It offers an on the fly debate.
6. I would choose clickers over a slip of paper for the simple fact that results are immediate. We are practicing EQAO and I observed a fellow teacher using them. She showed her students the practice results and asked them which questions they felt needed improvement. For her students to identify strands that are weaker, the clickers are valuable, especially when they quickly learn to read bar and pie charts in grade 3.
Not only can you show results per question, but per student. So, for EQAO, we research weak questions across the classes, as well as specific questions to each student.
Where in Ontario are you located?
I hope this helps!
Brian
-www.mraspinall.com
2 Nadine from Turkey
// Jul 28, 2009 at 11:50 am
Hi there,
Ugh, I liked! So clear and positively.
Nadine
3 GlenStef from Turkey
// Aug 2, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Thank you! I would now go on this blog every day!
4 Kara Woodworth from United States
// Jan 6, 2010 at 8:41 pm
I really enjoyed reading this post on the classroom clickers. This year is my 3rd year of teaching, so a great deal of this technology is new to me. In college, we had Smart Boards in our classrooms, so I have had some exposure to interactive white boards.
I currently have a Promethean Board in my classroom. It was just installed a few weeks ago for a free trial. This blog post is interesting to me because with my free trial came a set of classroom clickers, called ActivExpression.
I’m sure they are extremely expensive, but unlike the clickers you are talking about, these have full texting capability, so the students can text in their answers and they immediately show up once the teacher has ended the question. This is a great tool because you can ask questions other than multiple choice and true/false.
My students are always so excited to use them (I teach 6th grade). They are not allowed to use cell phones at school, so they love the technology that allows them to “text” in school. At first, some students were a little slower using them, but they soon got the hang of it.
I love being able to test their understanding of the lesson during and after the lesson. That way I can tell if I can move along or if I need to review the concept again. I think in the long run, it provides for more effective teaching and the students are very engaged because they want to be able to answer on their clickers.
It may be worth checking out this new technology. I am sad I only have a 60 day trial for the board, it does many more amazing things. It seems they have improved a great deal from the Smart Boards that I used in college.
5 Mr Kuroneko from Canada
// Jan 8, 2010 at 12:40 am
Hi Kara,
Thanks for the tip. A 60 day trial for an interactive whiteboard seems like a great way for a company to get technology into the classroom. (I can only imagine how tough it’s going to be for you and the students to give it up at the end of two months, which I guess is the point.)
6 Kara Woodworth from United States
// Jan 10, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Hello Mr. Kuroneko,
I think it will be very hard to give up! Hopefully our school will be able to purchase the board if funding becomes available. I noticed you are from Canada. Are interactive boards popular in your schools?
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