Clickers

I am interested in purchasing Clickers for my classroom. Does anyone use them? What product do you use? I think I can get the funds to purchase them but am not sure what to purchase. I have an Interwrite Pad and there are clickers for that system. Also, another teacher uses Turning Point Clickers. Any advice?

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Permalink Reply by Eric Burgess on July 26, 2010 at 5:25pm

Hi Derek,

Here's a post we did on protecting students’ anonymity and avoiding copycat behavior. Hope that helps clear up the confusion of being able to see other's responses!

Best,

Eric Burgess
Community Manager, Mouse Mischief
www.microsoft.com/mousemischief

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Permalink Reply by Derek Bruff on July 26, 2010 at 5:57pm

Thanks for sharing this post. It hadn't occurred to me that anonymity would be an issue with Mouse Mischief, but it's a serious one. Many students indicate on surveys that they like using clickers because of the anonymity clickers provide.

However, I think these are the key lines of the post:

"Some students will be alert enough to identify the mouse pointer of a student who seems to always know the answers and follow that mouse pointer with theirs on the screen. Others will rush to follow the crowd on the screen."

Now, I haven't actually observed a class using Mouse Mischief, but I would imagine that in older grades and certainly at the college level, these kinds of behaviors are likely to be frequent and lead to loss of independence and anonymity. And the steps outlined in the blog post aren't going to curb these behaviors, unfortunately.

Perhaps, however, Mouse Mischief is aimed at the earlier grades where students aren't likely to be as... strategic in their responses.

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Permalink Reply by Alline Sada on July 25, 2010 at 5:43pm

Have you considered iPod Touch Apps?

There are several different Polling Apps, obviously the subscription ones are more reliable. In such cases, the cost falls on to the school, not the student downloading the app. I like ResponseWare, it has gotten pretty good reviews.

Take a look at this article about Turning Point Technologies...
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/01/06/turning-tech-brings...

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Permalink Reply by Zee Ann Poerio on July 28, 2010 at 8:44pm

http://www.turningtechnologies.com/

I chose the TurningTechnologies "clickers." They are small, easy to use, and the students really enjoy using them.
They work with MS PowerPoint. You just need to download the software and then a TurningTechnologies RIBBON appears in the software when you open it which allows you to select the type of slide you want. VERY EASY. You can turn existing PowerPoint Presentations into interactive presentations but adding the RESPONSE sildes.

Creating the question slides are easy. You chose the type of question, type of graphing you want to use to show the results, and you can even chose to have a correct answer indicator after the students respond.
I have also used them for teacher events and workshops. They are great for collecting data and can also be used for contests. You can also print out results from a presentation or lesson where the devices were used and you can insert slides throughout the presentations to show "top scores" - which the students love to see. After a few lessons using the clickers, I had the students submit questions for slides and then picked the best ones to use in a REVIEW presentation. I gave the students a "byline" for creating the question and answer choices. They really liked being able to contribute in that aspect of the presentation. Older students can create their own presentations and enjoy creating the questions for the entire presentation.

TurningTechnologies has great instructional videos and they offer excellent support!