I'm a little late on my posting but a fellow student's blog reminded me about our lectures on clickers last week. Although a helpful classroom response system, I can't help thinking of another one I saw demonstrated one time. While attending a keynote address on undergraduate research, the keynote speaker brought up a website on the projector and asked audience members to text their area of research to a number he provided. Instantly all of the responses appeared on the projector for everyone to see. It was so cool! I believe the responses were anonymous with just phone numbers appearing (which may not be completely anonymous in a class with friends). A similar system can be found here. With this system students can use their cell phones (don't even need a smart phone) and can easily type in a full sentence (very similar to texting a friend!). I'm sure there are drawbacks but I just wanted to mention this as a way to get at similar processes as clickers.
Melissa,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I too have concerns with the privacy of clickers in the classroom. What happens to all that data? is anything really anonymous on a computer?
Cool. Do you remember the website he used ? There should be a way to hide the phone numbers though..
ReplyDeleteRanjan - I think the one I linked above was the one he used but I'm not positive. On a different note, I can no longer find your blog, can you send me the link?
ReplyDeletePollEverywhere does allow for texting responses, and one of our faculty in Biological Sciences has tested it. The good news is that it does provide many of the same benefits as clickers. And with most students on the texting bandwagon, it could be easy to get their buy-in. One drawback is that students can text from anywhere. If that is not important to you, then go4it!
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