Make a change？Setting up your class with clickers

 Clickers are individual response devices in which students each have a remote control that allows them to quickly and anonymously respond to questions presented in-class. Clickers are now being used in many classrooms as an active learning component of courses. Terms like personal response systems are also used to describe clickers, often in corporate training environments. But, as noted above, since this is the name of a specific brand, it can be confusing. For the purpose of this guide, we’ll simply call them clickers.

Using a traditional questioner, you first need to install a software system on your classroom computer to handle questioner input. The signal receiver (infrared or radio frequency) is then connected to the same computer, and the click response is sent to that signal receiver.

 In class, once the teacher asks a question and the student clicks on their response, the selection is sent to a receiver where the software tabulates the data and displays and records the results. The results are anonymous, but teachers can see which student provided which answer by linking the response to the serial number of a particular questioner or device. It is useful to set up a second screen and connect it to a computer so that the results can be presented in class for all students to review. Since many lecture halls already have screens of some kind, implementation is simple.

 For more modern systems using students’ personal devices, no software or receiver equipment is required. But students must bring their own device, download the appropriate app and connect to a WiFi network. Of course, the same system must be set up on the teacher’s device to allow students to participate in the class, even in mixed and distance learning environments. College classroom answer machines can now be used not only for multiple choice, alphanumeric and yes & no questions;QOMO QRF997 Response System with speech Recognition even allow students to use remote controls for quizzes and tests, thus saving teachers time during the grading process.