Post

Technology Makes Life Easier

“Just one more second here…” The professor stood at the podium computer with a puzzled look on his face as the stragglers in the 400-strong course enter the lecture hall.

“I just need to finish setting this up so we can get started…” The students followed the mouse pointer on the massive projected image as if in a daze. They’ve been waiting for about ten minutes while the professor attempted to set up the single most useless piece of technology ever: a radio frequency “clicker”. The idea itself is not bad, students enter the hall click their remote control-type device and their attendance is recorded. Also, the clickers could be used throughout the lecture as polling devices.

Unfortunately, two semesters of ill-fated testing and hours of lost lecture time have made it obvious that the clickers are useless. Perhaps if each student were to enter a shielded vacuum chamber and point a single device directly at a receiver things might work, but otherwise, it’s futile.

As a last resort, the clicker “expert” comes in to tap a few buttons and jiggle a cable before shrugging and leaving. By now, the lecture is almost over and instead of supplementing a fascinating lecture with an interactive quizzing session, we leave with neither.

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At
04:32:00 PM
On
March 2
In
By
Tom Fadial

Comments

  1. Heh.

    Ben Eastaugh

    Mar 2, 05:05 PM #

  2. Why don’t they just hard wire them? Wouldn’t be as pretty, but would be far more reliable…

    Andrew Hamann

    Mar 2, 05:08 PM #

  3. Andrew, that kind of deafeats the sheer craziness of 400 wires would be too much hardwiring. I think the room is also used for other classes?

    Glen C.

    Mar 2, 05:35 PM #

  4. Yep, I had to use them in my AFM 131 class for an entire semester. $15 (Canadian) for the clicker’s registration, and I think another $10 for the clicker. What a collosal waste of money!

    Eric. I

    Mar 2, 10:04 PM #

  5. Andrew: Like Glen said, I can only imagine the mess if there were to be 400 hardwired controllers. What might be possible is if they were built into the desks and were wired through the tables.

    Eric: The reason that I’m so mad is that I spent…wait for it…$95 (US) on the clicker and have seen absolutely nothing useful from it.

    Thame

    Mar 3, 03:57 AM #

  6. what brand of clicker? i was a temp doing tech support for the eInstruction ones. i’ll be so sad if it turns out they aren’t very usable. they’re pretty great people there.

    katy

    Mar 3, 11:26 AM #

  7. The brand is “RF” and they are RF(Radio Frequency) clickers. The problem might not be in the clickers themselves but the software too. I remember hearing the professor talk about some limitations in the program logging the clicks in some cases.

    Thame

    Mar 3, 03:26 PM #

  8. I had an eInstruction clicker. Sometimes they worked fine and weren’t that bad; other times a large portion of the class clickers would not log on and therefore those people got 0’s. Nothing is more disconcerting than not getting recognition for what you have truly learned.

    I think the main problem is that I don’t really see the need for them when an internet quiz could be done for virtually free. I paid a lot in that class and to tell the truth i’m kind of bitter. Also, the eInstruction clickers don’t have any display screen that shows you for sure what you responded, and therefore I was always in doubt if I accidentally nudged the wrong button.

    Oh well, c’est la vie. I still got through that class fine anyway.

    Eric. I

    Mar 3, 08:07 PM #

  9. It’s amazing what universities will make their students suffer through to appear cutting edge. To my knowledge, Boston University never tried any of this clicker nonsense. The occassional laptop/projector problem provided enough headaches as it was. :-)

    Jonathan Dobres

    Mar 4, 09:40 PM #

  10. I’ve already had two classes, one each semester, that tried out different kinds of clickers and none seemed to work. I really hope they just give up on this because I really can’t afford it :D

    Thame

    Mar 4, 10:11 PM #

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