The clicker changes pace, testing and participation in class.
Posted June 25, 2008, 3:58 PM EST Photo courtesy of Turning
Technologies LLC Before long, students may be pointing and
clicking in class as often as they turn the pages of their
Shakespeare anthologies or solve equations on their TI-83
calculators—thanks to the clicker, a new type of remote-control
technology. “It’s like the device they use to poll the audience
on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire,” says Lela Marshall, Office of
Information Technology and Communication classroom support
manager. “This is a couple generations newer than that.” When a
professor poses a multiple-choice question to the class, each
student uses a clicker—which looks like a mini-calculator or
remote control and has at least five buttons labeled A, B, C, D,
E and so on—to register a response. Almost instantaneously, a
separate device receives the clicker’s radio signal, tallies the
answers and displays the results. Marshall said the purpose of
clickers varies from classroom t