Audience Response Systems (Clickers)

There are two supported audience response systems on campus: Poll Everywhere and eInstruction. Faculty who wish to use one of these audience response systems in their class should contact Kevin Abbott at 1.8707 (kabbott@nd.edu) or stop by his office in room 350 DeBartolo Hall for a demonstration. Kevin works closely with members of the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning to advise faculty on proven practices integrating technology with pedagogy.

Poll Everywhere is a simple text message voting application that works well for live audiences. The presenter creates a poll with Poll Everywhere's online poll editor and the audience casts votes by sending text messages through a cell phone, smart phone, or by computer to Poll Everywhere’s short code number (99503) indicating the option they wish to select. A voter’s mobile carrier (e.g., Sprint, Verizon, AT&T) then routes their text message to Poll Everywhere’s web servers where the vote is counted and the voting results updated live. A Poll Everywhere poll can be viewed online, published to PowerPoint, or viewed as a web page. The only limitation is whether your classroom has a strong enough cell phone signal for your students. Kevin can work with you to make that determination. The only cost to students is if they do not have a cell phone with unlimited text messaging and would have to purchase a plan or pay by the text message. The cost per a message varies by carrier, but is usually between $.05 and $.15 per text message. There would be no cost if the student already had text messaging or was able to use their laptop or the web on their smart phone.

eInstruction utilizes physical clickers to answer questions. Faculty who choose to use eInstruction will be provided a receiver which simply plugs into the instructor's laptop via a USB port to receive the student clicker responses. The eInstruction software will need to be loaded on to your laptop. Kevin can work with you to set up your laptop and your eInstruction class. Students purchase their "clickers" at the Notre Dame Bookstore. Faculty must contact Bob Thompson at 1.8235 (rthomson@nd.edu) at the Bookstore and arrange for eInstruction clickers to be ordered for their class. Students buy their clicker from the Bookstore and are responsible for bringing it to class. The clickers cost $22 each from the Bookstore and need to registered online at eInstruction for $15 per semester before it can be used in class.