Audience Response System (clickers) by TurningPoint. Submitted to Journal of Technology and Human Services for Review.

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1 Running Head: Audience Response System (clickers) by TurningPoint Audience Response System (clickers) by TurningPoint Submitted to Journal of Technology and Human Services for Review Andrew Quinn, PhD University of North Dakota Department of Social Work

2 Audience Response System (clickers) by TurningPoint Andrew S. Quinn PhD Software Review Summary (circle or highlight one) Poor Excellent Performance Ease of Use Error Handling Documentation Efficacy Value for Money Software/Application Product: TurningPoint 2006 version Keywords: response, radio frequency, clickers, interactive PowerPoint Product Summary: TurningPoint Audience Response System is an interactive system that uses response clickers to allow participants to respond in real time to questions integrated into Microsoft PowerPoint. Evaluation Summary: The TurningPoint Audience Response System is an easy to use package that adds interactivity to PowerPoint presentations. The hardware is easy to configure and the software is easy to understand and use.

3 Source: TurningPoint Audience Response System is developed by Turning Technologies ( Turning Technologies is located in Youngtown Ohio and can be reached at Product Detail: Price for the TurningPoint Audience Response System begins at $199 for a receiver and $65 for the clicker. Prices can be reduced when the systems are purchased in bulk. The TurningPoint 2006 software can be downloaded from the company s website. The minimal requirements for running the software includes a 1 GHz processor, 256MB of ram, 60MB hard drive space, Windows 2000 SP4 or Windows XP, and a standard USB port. Reviewer Hardware and Software: The author installed the TurningPoint 2006 software on a Gateway M280 Tablet PC with 1.86 GHz processor and 1Gb of ram. Reviewer: Andrew S. Quinn PhD. College of Education and Human Development Box 7135 University of North Dakota Grand Forks, North Dakota, [email protected]

4 Audience Response System (clickers) by TurningPoint Introduction A presentation technology that is becoming more readily available are clickers. A clicker is a device that allows the user to click in a response to questions asked in a presentation or lecture. If the presentation is being delivered in a compatible software product, such as PowerPoint, responses are automatically displayed in the presentation. Figure 1 presents an image of a TurningPoint clicker. Figure 1. The TurningPoint Clicker DICK THE PICTURE SHOWS WHEN IN PRINT LAYOUT VIEW Clickers can come with built in LED displays or non-led displays like the clicker pictured above. In addition, clickers use either radio frequency (RF) or infer-red waves (IR) to send a signal to a device located in the room during a presentation. This device, called a receiver, records the users responses. The radio frequency clickers tend to have a range between 200 and 400 feet, while the infer-red is limited to 90 feet. TurningPoint provides software that is integrates with Microsoft PowerPoint to allow presenters to

5 create questions and answers that can be responded to in real time. User clicks are tallied and displayed instantaneously to the audience within a PowerPoint Slide. Any type of questions can be asked that can be answered by pressing a key from 1-9. For example, questions can focus on reinforcing knowledge or seeking users opinions on hot topics. The answers, or responses, can be in the form of multiple choice, yes/no, or Likert items. In addition to seeing the results live, reports can be generated that associate answers with the people using them. Several companies that offer clickers include einstruction, Quizdom, Options Technologies Interactive, and TurningPoint Technologies. At the time of this review the different clickers appeared similar. Each company has software that integrates into PowerPoint, has clickers that have LED and non LED display, and packages their clickers with textbooks. The main difference in the clickers is in price with the majority of the companies selling their clickers for around $30. One company (einstruction) sells their clickers for about $5 but requires that the user register the clicker with the company for about $18 per semester. Essentially, the companies have very similar products; the separation is localized in the form of support, the look and feel of the software to be used with the clickers, and how each company generates their report. However, one product does not appear superior to another. Thus, the choice of clickers is the users. The TurningPoint Audience Response System (ARS) ( will be the focus of this review. The TurningPoint clickers are the main product used within the Social Work Department at the University of North Dakota. TurningPoint offers several different pricing schemes for their PRS. Pricing begins at $199 for the receiver and $65 for the clickers. Prices go down when the

6 clickers are purchased in bulk. Even with the various price schemes, clickers could be considered expensive for academic settings. However, the TurningPoint ARS (software and receiver) were provided at no cost to the author because they were packaged with the textbooks. Thus, the cost of the clickers became the responsibility of the students. TurningPoint Software Application TurningPoint software installs smoothly directly into Microsoft PowerPoint. A new toolbar is integrated into the PowerPoint shell. Figure 2 shows the TurningPoint toolbar. Figure 2. TurningPoint Toolbar TurningPoint Toolbar The toolbar offers easy access to the numerous features available in the PRS. The features include developing participant lists, inserting question slides, and running participant reports. These features will be elaborated on below. Since the clicker was tested in an academic setting, the terms instructor, students, and classroom will be used. Participants: The first step in using the PRS is that students have to register their clickers. Each clicker has a 6 digit alphanumeric code that is used to associate a clicker with a student name. The TurningPoint software creates a participant list either by a) importing a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that identifies the student by clicker or b) having the student go to a website, choose the class number, and register the clicker. The software is also supposed to integrate with Blackboard to pull in a class list (the instructor still has to manually enter in the clicker code). However, at the time of this review, this feature was

7 not set up to work with the Blackboard system employed by the reviewer s university. Information is imported into the TurningPoint software and a participation list is formed. In the past, this reviewer has generated an Excel spreadsheet with student names and clicker codes and imported the information into the TurningPoint software. The manual process, while tedious, was chosen because at the time of this review neither the website registration nor the Blackboard proved effective. Both methods were still in the pilot stages. Overall, the creation of the participant list is necessary if the instructor needs to see who and how the clicker questions were answered by individual students. However, in a business meeting where votes may be anonymous, registration may not be necessary. Question Slides: The nucleus of the TurningPoint software is the ability to create question slides that are integrated into Microsoft PowerPoint slide shows. The slide includes both the question and the results. The choices of slides are based on how the results are displayed. For example, a vertical slide displays the results using a bar graph, while a 3D pie graph uses a pie chart to display the results. Additional slides include a doughnut slide, a horizontal slide, a distributed pie slide, and an offset slide. These slides can be chosen from a drop down menu found under Insert slides in the TurningPoint toolbar. Figure 3 shows a vertical slide. Figure 3. A Vertical Slide

8 In addition, TurningPoint provides some pre-selected answer slides. These slides include yes/no, Likert items, and true false slides. Once the slides are created objects that enhance the slides can be added. For example, a smiley face that indicates correct answers can be added. In addition, a countdown time can be used. The countdown time lets the students know how long they have to respond. The question slides can be added to an existing PowerPoint slide show or be created on the fly while developing a PowerPoint slide show. Overall, creating the slides was quite simple and doable. This author was able to integrate the slides into existing PowerPoint presentations and was also able to create the slides while developing a PowerPoint presentation. Going Live: Once the presentation is created, going live is a matter of using the slideshow feature of Microsoft PowerPoint. When a slide appears that requires a response, students use their clickers to indicate their answer. A toolbar appears that indicates how many students have responded. This toolbar is very useful in the fact that it allows the instructor to see how many people in the class still need to respond.

9 Examining the Results: The TurningPoint software offers the ability to create reports that indicate how students respond to the clicker questions. Reports can be generated by question or by respondent. These reports are created as Microsoft Excel files. The Excel reports consists of the respondents id number, name (if clickers are associated with student names) and the responses. Reports can be generated by participants or by questions asked. Support: TurningPoint technologies offers several asynchronous webcasts that demonstrate basic, intermediate, and advance use of the TurningPoint PRS and its features. The webcast are extremely informative and helpful in understanding the TurningPoint PRS. In addition, the TurningPoint website offers documentation and phone and support. This author also has had a great experience with talking to the sales people and tech support staff at TurningPoint. There were no wait times and the sales people were able to provided detailed information about cost, while the tech support help resolved an issue surrounding a nonfunctioning clicker. Use of Clickers in the Human Services This author used clickers to facilitate discussions and review content in several courses. For example, in a Human Behavior course, clicker questions were used to encourage discussion on topics on the likes of abortion and assisted suicide. In a quantitative methods course, the clickers were used to review content such as asking the students the sample size of a single subject design. While clicker questions were never graded, that is points awarded for certain responses, the response were tallied and counted for class participation. In fact, this author, in his syllabi, gives points for the percentage of clicker questions students responded to.

10 This author has collected some preliminary data on using the clickers and has found that students really enjoy the clickers. They felt like it reinforced knowledge, allowed students to remain anonymous, and facilitated discussion. The major drawback was that students did not know (at least with the Thompson ARS clickers used) that their responses were recorded at the time they responded to a clicker question. Hopefully, in the future, this author will employ the LED clickers and students will be able to see their responses. However, the current textbook packing scheme does not include the LED clickers. The use of clickers in various human service settings depends on one s imagination. For example, clickers can be used during conference presentations, can be used during focus groups, during a United Way priorities setting meeting, or to poll meeting participants prior to a vote. For example, clickers could be used at a United Way meeting where a motion is being discussed. Meeting participants could be asked to register their preliminary vote and how likely they are to change their minds. If almost all participants in a meeting indicate that they will vote to approve a motion or report and are very unlikely to change their minds, then discussion could be saved for more controversial agenda items. Another use for the clickers is in the arena of training. Human service workers can be given some training and the clickers can be used to review or reinforce what they have learned. For example, child protective workers can be brought into a training seminar on how to recognize different levels of physical abuse. Clicker slides can be created with pictures of varying severity and the worker can be given some choices on how they would be required to respond to the victim. Conclusion

11 In summary, this author found the Personal Response System easy to use. The software installed easy, the USB receiver and the clickers worked smoothly. The creating of the participant list, while tedious to create, was imported easily from Microsoft Excel. A drawback is the cost. For students to buy the clicker packaged with their text, the cost was about $35 above the cost of books. In addition, university departments tend not to have funds to purchase the clickers to use with a vast audience. Another drawback is the fact that there is an infer-red version and a radio frequency version. The instructor needs to communicate with the students or the bookstore and indicate which type of clicker to purchase. The radio frequency version and the infer-red are not compatible. A final drawback is that the non LED clickers make it difficult for the students to know immediately if their response were record. However, initial feedback from the students enrolled in this author s class indicates the clickers were easy to use and beneficial in facilitating the learning process. The use of clickers in other human services settings might also prove beneficial.