Building an Open Source "Clicker"?

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."

Comments

Missing the point, really.

[XoXus]

I think you're missing the point here. Most people who have problems with clickers won't find those problems disappearing with an "open-source" clicker. Their problems are either with the hardware (which it seems you are not trying to improve), or with the whole concept of using clickers.

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.

Re:Missing the point, really.

[XoXus]

That sounds like a social problem, one that I remember from high-school but not from university. Social problems tend to require social solutions, and if students fear "potential scorn", then there is a culture problem. These are rarely solved by technological means. And I do mean _solved_, rather than just hidden away.

the problem with clickers

[cashman73]

In a small class, it's unnecessary. As has been said already, I think most professors would actually prefer to interact directly with the students and ask questions freely. Technology such as this is actually a nuisance with these small classes, which is what most of your college classes at the 300 level and up are going to be like.

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

[truesaer]

ZigBee would be a cool technology to use for this. It is a low speed adhoc wireless standard with a smallish range (but sufficient for classroom use). The problem is that there isn't much silicon available yet because it is a relatively new standard, but you should be able to find a few things out there.

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...

[Spetiam]

Raise your hand?

Actually, this is a poor solution

[edremy]

IIAAT (I am an academic technologist) and hand-raising is almost worthless in a classroom. Why? Anonimity and response rates

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

1. The kid in the front row who knows everything, or at least thinks he does
2. The people who wait to see what #1 answers and then agree with him
3. The ones who won't raise their hands in any case for fear of being called an idiot.

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.

[ChePibe]

1. Professors won't go for it. Cell phones are already enough of a problem in the classroom. The last thing most professors want to do is encourage people to bring them to class and more importantly, if they must be brought to class, they'd rather not have students leaving them on (as a college student who has had a lecture course of 300 students interrupted on multiple occassions by one or two idiots who leaves their phone with who-knows-what ringtone on, believe me, I know).

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.

No one likes clickers

[vectorian798]

Here at UC Berkeley most students hate these clickers (called 'PRS' here, for personal response system or some shit like that). It is so superficial. A professor throws on some multiple choice question, and people hit a button to answer it and get participation credit. Is this the second grade or something? What the hell is participation credit for - in colleges we don't need that kind of bullshit. If people don't want to pay attention to lectures, that is their choice - most of the time lectures are useless anyways. Not only that, it wastes $45 on each student's part.

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.

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

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.

Bluetooth + IR + cell phones /w T9 or QWERTY?

[MBraynard]

Pretty much every phone has blue tooth OR an IR POrt. Just get a receiver.