Building an Open Source "Clicker"? 347
fieldtest asks: "Most Slashdot readers have read about "clickers", remote control style devices that students use to wirelessly answer a teacher's questions. Unfortunately, as a college student, I have had less than stellar experiences with these clickers. I hear complaints from my professors and fellow students often as well. So, I want to build an open source clicker system for all universities to use. I believe that this is a prime opportunity to show how powerful free software can be.
So, what do the talented people of Slashdot recommend?"
"The problem is this: a clicker system requires...clickers. What I need are remote controls that have a minimum of 6 buttons (for users to select options with). The sticking point comes when a button is pressed -- the remote must send the option choice, as well as a unique ID specific to the remote, so the clicker software can distinguish between different students.
I've experimented and Googled around. I've tried standard TV remote controls combined with an USB-UIRT receiver, but the range was too low. Googling shows some interesting programmable remotes, but they're far too expensive ($100+) to have each user purchase one.
How should I go about building the perfect clicker and receiver system? Any suggestion is welcome, from IR to radio, from Bluetooth to ZigBee based communications. Recommend a commercial product, or a do it yourself solution. Please also recommend a receiver device, and a way to connect it to a computer. Also, if you recommend that I just build a custom circuit board for the remote control, please give some references and examples of how it should be implemented."
The question is (Score:2, Insightful)
Address space required? (Score:3, Insightful)
Missing the point, really. (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, as an educator, I would find clickers to be a nuisance, and wouldn't find them useful anyway. It is far more effective to try to interact with the students and understand where their learning is at, individually, then tailor my teaching to whatever common problems or such need the most attention.
Wireless? (Score:3, Insightful)
the problem with clickers (Score:3, Insightful)
For those 100 or 200 level classes with 200+ people in them, one might argue that it would be beneficial to maintain order. But the reality of the situation is that you'd have to give out clickers to every student, then train the professors how to use them. And seriously, folks, most professors aren't going to give a damn about learning to use these, especially those older ones with tenure who were born before Christ walked the earth. So they're most likely going to ignore them anyway. The other disadvantage is that these things would break down, and probably frequently. Students themselves wouldn't know how they work (properly, being the key word here). When they think they know how it works, the darn thing will break, and have to get fixed. IT departments are just going to love these things! LOL
ZigBee (Score:5, Insightful)
You could use USB for the interface back to a piece of host software on a regular computer. There are lots of cheap microcontrollers with USB interfaces built in, and they even come with reference firmware and drivers. USB is an incredibly easy bus from a hardware circuit perspective too.
Combine that with pcb123.com and a couple hundred dollars for boards and parts, and you've got your clickers. The only hard part will be finding some kind of plastic case to put them in that will be durable enough for classroom use. You can save money by not soldering the USB connector onto all the boards.
Ummm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, this is a poor solution (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't like to feel stupid, especially in front of their peers. If a professor is trying to find out if her students know something and asks for hands, you get three different groups
Clickers let the professor get high response rate with anonymity. There's a lot of hate on /. for these things, but used properly (and I've seen it done many times) they're a great tool
Uh, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Students won't go for it. Contrary to popular belief, not all students have or want cell phones. I don't own one and plan on avoiding owning one as long as possible (hopefully until whoever I work for buys me one and pays for it). I'd rather not have to pay yet more money to go to school just so I can answer quizes - books cost enough, thank you very much.
Re:Missing the point, really. (Score:5, Insightful)
clickers? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:TI-83s (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Low-cost Low-tech "Clickers" (Score:2, Insightful)
Some students feel that being made a fool of in front of class is embarrassing enought that they would rather fail the class than be ridiculed.
Yes, it's stupid, but I bet you a full 1/2 of students feel that way.
Yes I go to school still at night, so this is not from 1984. And yes, I usually don't care who thinks what so I open my big mouth whenever, but others say nothing the entire semester, and are happy with a C.
I tell you it's bad because my current teacher asks: "Does anybody _not_ understand this concept?" and the class stays silent, looking confortable. Then the teacher asks: "Does anybody understand this concept?" and the room also stays silent and still, very unconfortable now. (he's doing a lousy job btw)
The key is that people try to make friends of other students, not professors, so student-to-student image is veeeery important.
I know I'm going off-topic, but I can tell you that this is the very reason educators need something like the clicker.
Ultimately, the teaching environment sucks. Teachers are too few and many are very bad, can't be understood because of poor english speaking skills, can't make the subject interesting, or simply don't care.
The younger students I see (and I do pity them) are adrift in a sea of bureaucracy that is absolutely sucking their creativity dry. They look like zombies, listening like drones for hours on end and just memorizing enough to pass the next test. Cumulative final? Have to remember this crap more than 4 weeks straight? Drop the class, or suffer through yet-another crappy class taught by someone who can't teach.
I know you want to know: CSUN.
Re:Uh, no. (Score:2, Insightful)
Clicker Cheats (Score:2, Insightful)
So during the demo, I point out that if I worked out a code, I could message each other students the answers via these blinks. Say, three blinks means select "c".
The teachers swore me to secrecy. I only reveal it now as a warning to others....
No one likes clickers (Score:5, Insightful)
The best solution is to not have any such system and simply DO example problems in lecture. The thing that college lectures lack is not something captivating (like hitting the button on a remote is actually captivating...) or innovative, but BETTER LECTURES. Period. Lecturers tend to go over things in too much of an 'overview' format (at least in the science/tech classes) and avoid doing actual example problems that might help us LEARN.
Instead of throwing materials and problems at students and saying 'Here go study and come take my test later', lecturers should try to teach the students legitimately and AIM to improving their testing performance...right now, all it feels like is that I am paying 20k a year for taking a few tests. A f***ing remote control won't solve this issue of boring, shitty lectures.
You are missing the point of clickers... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have lectured at CU in several courses with over 200 students, and it's remarkable how difficult preparing such lectures can be. The problem is that the professor must pitch the discussion at a level where all but the worst students are not lost, and even the brightest students get something. Even among students with about the same level of understanding, different people learn in different ways.
Doing example problems is (of course) very important -- but the point of the clicker is to get you, the student, to think about the example problem as it is happening. Otherwise a large fraction of the class simply gets lost -- doesn't assimilate the material.
Now, one might argue that "getting lost" in lecture is a sign that one shouldn't be there in the first place -- but that is a discussion for pundits and university administrators. The job of the lecturer is to get the material planted in the minds of as many of the students as possible. The best ones will pick it up anyway, and the worst ones are hopeless -- so the name of the game is to help the mediocre students as much as possible.
Of course, upper-division courses are different. I am speaking of large (introductory) lecture courses.
Re:Mobile phones! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No one likes clickers (Score:3, Insightful)
The best solution is to not have any such system and simply DO example problems in lecture.
If only.
There is a lot of research that backs up the effectiveness of "active learning." You don't really learn something until your brain has to actively grapple with it.
There is an "old" model of education whereby the professor presents the material and the students learn by listening. In practice, this does not work so well-- and educational research has shown this. This is true even when professors do example problems. A better characterization of what goes on in a lecture is that the professor's lecture notes are transferred to the students' class notes without passing through the brains of either.
It's one thing to look at a problem that's been done and say, yeah, I know how to do that. It's entirely another thing to be able to take the concepts of a class and apply them to a novel problem. The latter is deeper learning. Requiring the students to actively think in class helps promote that sort of learning. Clickers are one tool that, when used well, can facilitate that sort of thing.
-Rob
Re:The question is (Score:2, Insightful)
*raises hand*
I think not.
At this time I'd like to thank my Anteater (UCI) overlords for NOT buying into this gimmicky crap.
If you can't leave home without a remote, see a psychologist. You've got a problem.
Re:The question is (Score:3, Insightful)
This is for students who are in a lecture hall with over 100 other students. There is simply no way the professor can give individual attention to each student. Because of this, clickers are the easiest way for a professor to get a feel for whether or not he is effectively getting his point across.
If 90% of the class answers a question correctly, the professor can feel somewhat confident moving the lesson forward. If only 20% of the class can answer correctly, he knows to spend some more time in that area of the lesson.
The clickers have absolutely nothing to do with being social or anti-social. They are a tool for helping professors figure out whether they are getting their ideas across, instead of just staring into a sea of blank faces.
Re:The question is (Score:2, Insightful)
Or you can use it for quick self-quizes.
But mainly, the use of these systems are for laughs. Laugh at the anonymous person who doesen't know the difference between a positive and negative slope on a graph. Laugh when your class manages to freeze it a fourth time, and hundreds of other students have used it without it freezing once. Use a digital camera on night setting to record everyone answering, upload the video, and make everyone tell you their impressions of it without knowing what the video is of. The optimum usage is definitely the entertainment value.
Re:different tack (Score:3, Insightful)
So, it appears that all you'd need is to hotwire a single clicker into transmitting continuously, and it would inhibit all the others.
Of course, your idea of crashing the software is cute, but it just takes one software patch and you're back to the drawing board. Attacking the RF layer is more likely to yield a permanent solution.
Better yet, if one of the supposed advantages of a clicker system is anonymity, why not build a receiver that lets you eavesdrop on everyone else's clicks and serial numbers?
Bluetooth + IR + cell phones /w T9 or QWERTY? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No one likes clickers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The question is (Score:1, Insightful)
There have always been professors who lecture their classes as if they were lecturing a hall of widgets. Clickers will allow them to do what they do more easily. They are still irresposible asshats for lecturing that way, because they are actively avoiding acquiring any personal knowledge of their students.
Class size be damned. This is where the student has to vote with their feet. If the university you are attending puts you in classes of 300+, find another. They are choosing economies of scale over giving the students value for their money. I am continually shocked to see what the students will put up with from university administrations. I tell the students to complain to the Dean and the President of the university, but I suspect they don't.
The university will reduce service to reduce cost as far as they can get away with it. It the students who have to keep them honest. If they aren't giving you value for the money you pay, leave and put your money in the hands of a competitor.
Re:The question is (Score:2, Insightful)
And what happened to the good old days when class attendance was trivial, and if you didn't show up you just didn't pass the exam. Now they want you in class so bad, that you can FAIL the exam because you don't know your stuff, plus get another 10pts off because you didn't show up. Even worse, if you know the material forwards and backwards, you can walk away with a 90 just because you didn't show up, even making straight 100's across the board. Ridiculous.
Re:Uncorroborated Anecdote... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see how a clicker would have prevented a student that didn't understand a concept from asking a question. Well...unless the schools say, "You aren't allowed to ask questions only to answer them with your clicker." But, what kind of education would that be? However your one minor point
I agree with the grandparent posting, part of school is to socialize students, get them interacting, have discussions in class and promote thinking. Allowing students to "click" through lessons does none of these.
Re:You do not need a hard coded ID for the clicker (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The question is (Score:2, Insightful)