The Semester in Review: The "I-Clicker"

The Semester in Review: The "I-Clicker"
Take THAT, higher education.

This semester, UC Berkeley launched a pilot program in which several classes were mandated to use the "I-Clicker" response system.

If you've used a PRS transmitter before, the I-Clicker isn't much different, the buttons just happen to click, and there are only five of them. Apparently the company that makes these thinks that if they add an "I" in front of the name and make it have next to no buttons, it will look like an Apple product.

Students in these classes would have to each buy an I-Clicker, priced at around 35 bucks. Professors would put multiple choice questions, and students would click the corresponding letter. The I-Clicker registers your ID and allows professors to record your answers.

You see how this sucks: professors can use these to check attendance. And not only do you have to be in class, you have to pay attention to get the answer right.

Administration thought this would be a good incentive to be in class. However, it just incentivized having friends in the class to give your I-Clicker to.
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Comments

tallblonde
This wasn't introduced this semester--I used an iclicker for chem 1a in Spring 2007. That was the first semester they were used for that class, but they may be even older than that. Posted 05/17/2008 6:03 PMReply
Anonymous
Haha, that's funny. I think they'll have to implant a gps chip in every student's arm or something AND have the location correlate with the iClicker's usage location. Otherwise you'll have someone playing click-o-rama hehe Posted 05/18/2008 09:23 AMReply

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