Teaching with "clickers"

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Have any instructors used RF remotes in their classrooms? I'm interested in using them in my apprentice class, but had some questions. How much for a complete basic system, and how hard are they to set up? I really just want to set up an in-class quiz (like a game show) and divide the class into two teams to compete, but I want to develop my own questions in multimedia format. Thanks.
 

xformer

Senior Member
Location
Dallas, Tx
Occupation
Master Electrician
I have recently seen an ad for a classroom jeopardy. The ad I saw said you could write your own games. I know this doesn't answer your question, but might give you another avenue to explore.
 

mikeames

Senior Member
Location
Gaithersburg MD
Occupation
Teacher - Master Electrician - 2017 NEC
I have used a dozen or so systems from quizdom to promethean. To be brutaly honest. They have worth and value but take a lot of time. It seems to be edutainment. I could go on and on about the pros and cons and the abilities of the different systems I have used. On the oter hand you get what you put into it. Your prep time will go through the roof making/creating the slides and flipcharts used in those games. I find the the majority of the time I can do just as good of a job explaining, demonstrating, or showing via viedo than I can with the games.

I am by no means against them but my experience with these starting in 2001 has taught me that they do have worth and value but loose their luster after a while. Again my personal prefernance only other may swear by these. The two systems I have used the most is quizdom "qwizdom.com/?gclid=CMeM-prujacCFVFx5Qody17eeA" and Promethian "www.prometheanworld.com/" PM me if you want more info.
 
I've only seen them used in school where the system registers each one to a specific person and tracks their answers for grades. Whatever system they were using had trouble with about 10-15% of the clickers every semester.
 

JeffD

Member
Location
cleveland, oh
I just started with a system this year. Verdict is still out if it was worth it. I just mix some quiz slides in my pp presentation to break things up. My system was $1500 for 25 clickers from Turning Technologies. A student who used them needs to answer and tell us their thoughts.
 

mikeames

Senior Member
Location
Gaithersburg MD
Occupation
Teacher - Master Electrician - 2017 NEC
I've only seen them used in school where the system registers each one to a specific person and tracks their answers for grades. Whatever system they were using had trouble with about 10-15% of the clickers every semester.

all of the systems I have use dof the past 10 years give the Admin / teache rthe option of assigning a student to a remote. This doe shelp with grading etc.. as you mentioned however I never used this becuause it was just one more thing to worry about. I have never had a problem with the remotes on any of the systems / brands.
 
all of the systems I have use dof the past 10 years give the Admin / teache rthe option of assigning a student to a remote. This doe shelp with grading etc.. as you mentioned however I never used this becuause it was just one more thing to worry about. I have never had a problem with the remotes on any of the systems / brands.

It probably was human error more than anything else, just gets frustrating.
 

lauraj

Senior Member
Location
Portland, Oregon
For games, I just use shower board cut up into about 1 foot squares, they make great mini white boards. Give each team a square and a marker and the first team to write down the correct answer and display it gets the point. To display questions, I use PowerPoint. Cheap, fast, and easy to set up. Students seem to enjoy it a lot too.
 
Thanks to everyone for the information. I probably won't start teaching until Fall, so it gives me some time to check these systems out. My plan is not to use it as a formal grading device, just to break up the monotony a bit with basic identification or definition quizes.
 

icefalkon

Member
Here in NYC we use CPS from einstruction.com

The price is comparable to the other brands and it works really well. Their service is one of the reasons we went with them.
 
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