Tech-Tuesdays, December 16, 2008

Hey All,

I was recently asked about the current prospects for using a class response system such as iClicker in an interactive broadcast environment. In that regard I want to talk about two class response products , Web Clicker and Poll Everywhere.

Web Clicker:

been encouraging our instructors at USU Brigham City to give it a try in their face-to-face classes, and a few instructors have used it successfully during the last year or so. As good as the iClicker system is, it does have one obvious limitation, which is that it only supports face-to-face classes. Recently the folks at iClicker have been promising an expansion of their product line to include an application they’re calling Web Clicker. This product will support interactive broadcast classes and accept responses from the iClicker hand-held remote or any other web supported device, such as a web-enabled cell phone. iClicker plans to offer a beta test version of Web Clicker beginning spring 2009. There’s more information on Web Clicker at: http://www.iclicker.com/dnn/OurProducts/webclicker/tabid/156/Default.aspx

Poll Everywhere:

If you want to get started right away, I suggest you take a look at Poll Everywhere. They’re at http://www.polleverywhere.com.

With Poll Everywhere, your class doesn’t need specific hardware such as individual clickers or a classroom receiver. The system is fully supported via the web and cell technology so the hardware is already in place. Students can send responses by texting from their individual cell phones or any web-enabled device such as a laptop, iPhone, iPod Touch, etc. You can imbed a live graph into a PowerPoint slide and display polling responses in real time which can then be viewed by all of your students, both in the local classroom and at remote sites via the IVC interactive broadcast system. Pretty cool!

Displaying PowerPoint via the Web:
Hey, just a quick follow-up on an item I waved in front of you a while back. As you’ll recall, my friend and colleague Mike Stucki steered me onto a site called Slideboom that lets you share PowerPoint slide shows via the web. Recently I’ve stumbled across a couple of similar sites that offer the same service. Check out http://280slides.com/ and http://www.slideshare.net/.

Need help with class? YouTube Videos Await:
One last item: check out this article about YouTube videos. Who knew that there was actually something useful on YouTube? Check out this article from the MSNBC web site:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28200197/

OK – that’ll do it for this week. Pray for snow and have a great Christmas break!

John Spencer

Technology Training Specialist
USU Brigham City Regional Campus
john.spencer@usu.edu
435.734.2277 x252
435.757.8395 (Cell)
435.797.1784 x252 (From USU Campus)