Several of us from the Library had a pretty good meeting with some of the science division faculty last week to discuss clickers. Faculty were pretty jazzed about the way clickers seem to help students focus and stay engaged, and the way the faculty get instant formative feedback that helps them get the students over hurdles they might not even know were there otherwise. All of these things could be done other ways with skilled teaching methods, but clickers keep it anonymous and help make sure there is full anticipation very quickly. For Human Sexuality in particular, which is a class of 110 students, clickers make all the difference.  Complaints include the costs, the learning curve, and the unreliability of the clickers, all of which drive us all mad. So, we are embarking on a search for a new clicker system that is:

-affordable

-works on multiple platforms (at least Mac and Windows) and has the same or a very similar interface across platforms

-has a reasonably low learning curve

-has good support from the vendor

-can handle as wide a variety of inputs as possible (scientific notation would be nice, and not by workaround)

Now if we can get the science faculty happy with a clicker standard, what are the odds that we might successfully evangelize about it to the rest of the campus? That is the question that remains.

For me, a solitary faculty instructional support person for the entire college, clickers present a bit of a support dilemma. I learn how to use a system, try it out in a few hypothetical situations in my office, and then stash it away in a drawer. The one or two questions I get about clickers a year haven’t made them a high enough priority for me to stay on top of the software, especially when it changes as often as it does. The learning curve is just too high relative to the demand, and there are lots of other software and hardware questions faculty have that occur a lot more frequently. No one in support can know all things about everything, but I’m a pretty good generalist when it comes to web design, 2.0 apps, learning management systems, multimedia apps and devices, and of course instructional design. This year I’ve also added HD digital video,  ePortfolios, author rights and Skype-like services to the pile. Can I handle clickers on top of all this? Right now the numbers are low, but if this grows, I’ll want to become much more conversant with whatever we standardize on, and something else will have to go as a result.

Check the photos to see the crowd and get a sense of what it was like, but I would describe our first annual Linfield Faculty Tech Fair as a modest success. We were able to draw a total of about 25 people for six presentations, and while the numbers were smaller than I had hoped for, the conversations were rich and dynamic. I floated around the room listening as faculty talked to one another about the things they were working on, and heard numerous “aha, I could do X” moments. I think there were some connections made across disciplines and that some new ideas were generated.  Several of my neighbor librarians commented that they were impressed by what they heard, as well. I’m encouraged enough to try this again next year, only this time with much more promotion.