clickers
Today we learned about clickers. The presentation was very well done and I liked that the whole class got involved. I am not too sure how I feel about them though.
I have used clickers before in my study and although it may sound imature I found myself always wanting to push the buttons just to see what would happen-while this sounds childish-if you give these things to a group of middle schoolers, I gaurentee they would do the same thing!
I like the idea of saving paper and doing things on the bored and it is good that it will save the teacher time on grading, but part of me thinks that is part of being a teacher. I fear teachers will become too lazy and chose to use these for all testing rather than just when needed. I fear grades will go from essays and short answers where the kids have to think about what they are doing into all multiple choice so it is easier on the teacher.
Also what if two classrooms side by side are using the clickers-could the machines get confused and pick up mixed signals?
What if someone wants to go back and change there answer?
I think they sound good in theory but they just seem slightly lazy to me. I don’t know if I would be a fan-and from what the boys said it seems like a hastle to get it all set up.
It is cool though to do group things and get to know everyone activities with.
