April 8, 2008
One of our departments is interested in using a student response system for big lectures so I’m researching which might be the best to implement here at WIT.
”The terms classroom response system, classroom communication system, wireless response system, and interactive response sytem are used interchangeably. The term refers to a software/hardware system that allows instructors to easily get instant feedback from their students, using remote control devices and a portable receiver.The basic process works like this: Students are shown a question and they respond by pressing a button on their remote control (clicker). Responses are tallied by computer and feedback is instantly available in the form of histograms and detailed reports.” From UTexas
There are many variables to consider…price, hardware, software (Mac & PC), do students buy their own remote (clicker) or are they provided by the Institute, integration with BlackBoard CMS, support, etc. Much like video conferencing software, it seems that these companies merge often. I’m looking for your experiences here…what SRS do you use? Why? What do your faculty say about using the systems?
April 9th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Hi Stephanie,
I’ve been doing a lot of research on the various SRSs lately. They tend to be expensive, around $30-$40 per clicker for a capable system. I perceive the leaders to be TurningPoint, Interwrite PRS, and Quizdom. For a little more money, smart classrooms systems like Promethean Activote and SMART Senteo are available. There’s just tons available however: H-ITT, iRespond, Quicktally, iClicker, Optivote…. and I haven’t even mentioned the ones aimed at businesses!
I’m a student at MIT. The high cost of clickers motivated my friends and I to build PollEverywhere.com. It uses student cell phones as clickers. Students pay only normal text messaging charges, about $.01 per response. We priced it to be free for K-12, but it always comes out cheaper than hardware, usually at about 10% of the cost. We don’t have all the features you’ll find in TurningPoint, but many professors find they don’t end up using all the feature anyway. A professor at the University of Florida uses Poll Everywhere prolifically for 3 sections of about 180 students each. Please get in touch if you’d like to know more about it, or any of the other SRSs out there.