Student Response Systems

I am not sure how many people are using these in a K-12 environment but at the university level thay are being used to good effect. They allow teachers to see (more or less) how they are doing, as they teach, by giving students the opportunity to answer questions throughout the lecture. The ability to quickly survey knowledge can help determine (on the fly) how the content needs to be adjusted.

My experience, having been on both ends of the SRS is that; as a student with a clicker, well posed questions make you feel and become more engaged. As a teacher they let you know how you are doing, which is very reassuring.

Clickers used with a interactive whiteboard, the web and streaming audio/video are a powerful (and fun) way to communicate knowledge.

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Permalink Reply by Melissa Benson on August 21, 2008 at 6:39pm

"I think, while the senteo do work with PowerPoint they are a bit klunky: they work much better in Notebook. While I don't have much experience with turning point they do seem to be a better fit with PowerPoint than the senteo."

Yes, I have noticed the same thing. Our district has SMART Notebook on every computer but many teachers still use PowerPoint so that is critical for them. Hopefully more and more teachers will migrate over to SMART Notebook - it's so much better!

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Permalink Reply by gerry davis on August 22, 2008 at 6:44am

The import PowerPoint feature is nice with the Notebook although you do lose your PP transitions as part of the process, which I know bums some people out. The nice thing about 10 is that there are some new effects built in so you now can do hides, reveals, fly in's, etc, etc. This might be a good selling point for people who are reluctant to change. Nobody wants to lose their stuff!
Another selling point is that you will soon be able to (if you can't already) directly export accessments to Excel, which then can be ported to grade book programs such as "Progressbook" (the new part of the deal). I know that the export to xls has been around but getting the grades into the district grade book is going to get a lot slicker according to Smart Ed. If this works it could be a huge time saver!

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Permalink Reply by Melissa Benson on August 25, 2008 at 7:49pm

Our district uses the grading program iCUE. If a SRS is ever able to directly export into our grading program this would be HUGE. Sounds like maybe it could happen in the future.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Carls on September 10, 2008 at 8:14pm

I thought you meant NBC's iCue.com was able to be used with an SRS!

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on August 16, 2008 at 2:02pm

I am sooo low tech--I've used 9x12 dry erase boards and markers for years.

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Permalink Reply by Jarrod Robinson on September 11, 2008 at 1:15am

www.polleverwhere.com is a great free tool similar to what your talkin about

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Permalink Reply by Chris Gooch on November 24, 2008 at 8:05pm

I have found that the Clickers from eInstruction are hands down the best for one very good reason. They are the only ones that work with Examview test generator. Examview comes with most textbooks and you can select questions that are dynamic.

Chris

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Permalink Reply by Sean Nash on November 30, 2008 at 3:17pm

I have personally found that the clickers from eInstruction are the buggiest and most unrealiable of any I have seen. My district made a huge investment a few years back with few people asked for input. The result:
a classroom of clickers from eInstruction for every single secondary science classroom...
(over 50 classroom sets)

and now very very little use overall in some places.

The support given to this system via phone is..... horrible. I have spent hours on the phone over and over again to little avail.

I hope my honesty here doesn't make too many folks angry.
;-)

Do your homework here... there are several options.

Sean

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Permalink Reply by Julie Baird on December 1, 2008 at 4:30pm

Thanks, Sean. I appreciate your honest. Can you give me specifics about how they are buggy and unreliable? Do have any experience with clickers from other companies?

Until I stumbled on this post, I didn't know that there were so many companies making these student response systems. I have looked at some but until I play with them, I can 't really tell how good they are. That's why I was hoping someone on this site had personally used the ones from Senteo/SmartBoard and CPS/einstruction and could give me a review of both.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Baird on December 1, 2008 at 4:32pm

One other question, Sean. Do you use your clickers on a PC or a Mac?

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Permalink Reply by Sean Nash on December 1, 2008 at 4:52pm

Good questions... 1. 95% here use them with a desktop PC. I have used them that way as well as with a MacBook Pro. I have had fewer problems than the majority, though electronics do not frighten me in many ways.

2. Pick a way they can be buggy... and they have done it. When I would save up enough trouble to make a call to the company it would usually be five or six things... handsets not finding the source... locking up... switching channels from the receiver (and a very uncool way of switching them back)... a strangely large percentage just stopped working altogether. Apparently there was even some trouble getting them replaced at no cost since by the time we finally got them to take them back... and we got them returned... it was "past our warranty period." Yuck.

3. I have only used others at conferences, etc... so I do not know maintenance details. However, so many have seemed far easier to connect signal with.

Sean

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Permalink Reply by Julie Baird on November 29, 2008 at 4:07pm

Can you give me your opinion on the Senteo clickers vs. the CPS clickers from einstruction? Our Foreign Language Dept. currently has the CPS clickers from einstruction. We also have a SmartBoard. Our tech director is thinking about ordering Senteos for us since we have the SmartBoards and passing our CPS clickers on to someone else. Before I agree, I'd like to know the pros and cons of each system. Can Senteo's be used without a Smartboard? I like the clickers from einstruction and don't want to trade them unless the Senteos are better.