Clickers!

Clickers are great! Students love them, because they actually have a say in the discussion and can answer anonymously.



I hadn't realized that Clickers have been used in college courses. It's cool to think that colleges and universities are giving them a try, and allowing more students to give their input. It's smart for these institutions to have the same system through out their campus so that students only need to purchase one Clicker for their time in school. The only problem would be if the school decided to change systems and make students purchase new Clickers.



As with the iLife Suites, having programs work together seamlessly is good. I like the idea - as a teacher - for having the Clickers' recorded data work with the Blackboard system that schools use. This makes life ten times easier for the teacher to keep track of student grades and understanding. I think the best part about using Clickers for assessment is its' hands-off approach. The teacher doesn't have to take home piles of papers to grade each night, and countless trees are saved!

Even though the study about using Clickers or not in the classroom setting didn't reveal an outstanding difference in actual learning, I think that simply having the extra interaction during class time would help students' in understanding.

With so many assessment types available (multiple choice, true/false, survey, opinion, fill-in the blank), Clickers have an easy-to-see advantage for the classroom teacher. Assessment is taken without losing time, and students have become actively engaged. For students, they don't have to worry about the embarrassment of giving an incorrect answer, and they get their 'score' back instantaneously.