If you don’t know what an iClicker is, you HAVE to watch this video and see! It’s a great tool that can be used in the classroom in so many different ways! Check out the link below! Thanks for reading/watching!
– A Teacher In Training
(Photo) I h
ad never heard of an “iClicker” until recently in my Junior year of college. It was in a theatre class I’m taking. I was thinking, “This is silly, what in the world are we going to use a remote for in this class?”. Well, we’re six weeks into the semester now and I see that this iClicker object is one of the best educational technology tools I have seen.Yes, we have SmartBoards, tablets, iPads, and apps for these devices, but the great thing is that all of these devices can work with the iClicker. The iClicker can be a physical remote, or an app that can be downloaded onto a phone or tablet. It doesn’t have many buttons, therefore it is easily used. There is a power button, a reset button, four arrows, a delete and send button, and five buttons with the letters A, B, C, D and E. This is for the use of multiple choice questions.
The iClicker is great for seeing if students are participating in class and if they are understanding the material. Sometimes in a classroom students can look like they are paying attention because they are looking towards the board or the teacher, but then they take a test and the results aren’t great and the teacher is left wondering what happened. The iClicker can be used in a lesson, for a quiz, or even a test. Every student would have a remote or use the app on their device. In my opinion, from experience, the actual remote is better than the app. This is because if all of the students are using the same wifi connection and it’s too much which makes the wifi slow down, then your lesson, quiz, or test gets delayed.
The way it works is this: A student purchases an iClicker remote. The teacher purchases a base and sets it up with the name of the classroom, such as “Ms. Hill’s Second Grade Class”. The student registers their remote on the iClicker website, and also registers it with the teacher’s base in the classroom. After this is done once, every time the student is in the classroom and turns on their remote to use it, it automatically pairs with that teachers base. Another great thing about this tool is that it can be used for more than one class. If a student has one teacher for English, but a different teacher for Science, they can still use the same iClicker remote for both classes. They just simply register the remote to both teacher’s bases. In the English classroom, it will automatically pair with the English classroom base and in the Science classroom, it will automatically pair with the Science classroom base. To use the remote a student will turn it on and the screen will show up the name of the base that it is paired with. The teacher will show a question through a projector or however they choose, with five answer options. The students will then select A, B, C, D, or E and the teacher will receive the feedback automatically through the base. Also, the teacher has control over how long the students have to answer each question. If the teacher thinks they need thirty seconds to answer one question, but a minute for another, they can change that according to how they want. Sometimes students can be unsure about an answer after they have selected one, but with the iClicker a student can change their answer until the time runs out.
The iClicker is resourceful because it sends the teacher immediate feedback. The teacher can see who answered correctly and who did not. It engages students because it is a fun way to answer questions. Also, if a student is shy or gets embarrassed to raise their hand to answer a question, this is a good way to get them involved in classroom participation.
Here is what the website had to say about how the iClicker works in an educational setting: “For educational institutions using i>clicker Integrate, students register their remotes within the LMS resulting in fewer errors, and faculty seamlessly sync class rosters and polling data without ever leaving the i>grader application.”(iClicker.com) The website also had some information of softwares that the iClicker can be integrated with. ”The PowerPoint (PPT) add-in makes it easy for instructors to create clicker questions in PPT that integrate with the i>clicker 7. At a minimum, instructors will be able to create questions and assign a correct answer within PPT. The PPT integration will be a plug-in that must be installed and will be compatible with PowerPoint for the Windows operating system. The PPT integration will only work with i>clicker 7.” (iClicker.com)
The product made by the iClicker company that a parent would need to purchase for their child would be either the iClicker 1 or 2. The iClicker remotes can vary in price. To buy one brand new they are about $45.00, or someone could buy a used one online. This is an inexpensive educational resource that would be very useful in any grade level and any content area classroom. So for all you teacher and future teachers, USE iClickers because they’re awesome! Thanks for reading!
-A Teacher in Training
Clicker & Audience Response Systems – iClicker. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2015.
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