We chimed in on the interesting discussion on classroom clickers at http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/06/19/groveman, and I thought I’d cross-post here.

I want to outline our views from the perspective of a company who is trying to cut the cost of clickers by 10X. We’re already convinced of their pedagogical value, especially as the average mobile device starts to deliver a richer experience.

Mobile Phones as Clickers

SMS is ubiquitous on mobile phones, and works in extremely low signal areas (it is much more reliable and resilient than voice). Our tests of between 30 – 1000 replies show that response speed is quite acceptable to instructors, and a sent messages has never been dropped. But SMS costs money (addressed below), and there are valid concerns of accessibility that have been discussed in this thread. Our view (and that of Eric Mazur’s group at Harvard) is that the best solution is a flexible hybrid: Laptops, smartphones, dumbphones, and as a last resort, $30-$60 clickers.

Cost

Poll Everywhere is free for sections of less than 30 students and any K-12 Title I public school who has not made AYP. Our larger plans are not free so that we can dedicate our lives to this problem and also provide quality support. High quality on-demand support is one of open source’s challenges.

Our pricing comes out to $1.25 per student per semester, contrasted with the market prices for clickers that Frederica and Ira have provided. SMS messaging fees can be up to $.20 per message, but a surprisingly high percentage of Higher Ed students have text messaging plans that make the effective price $0.01 per message. The cost of SMS is a temporary weakness for two reasons: 1) US Carriers will soon follow Europe and Asia’s lead with FTEU SMS – “Free To End User”, making Poll Everywhere SMS responses free to students. 2) The rise of iPhones and web enabled smartphones has prompted us to create Poll4.com, which enables free SMS-like responses.

Who Should Pay

The “student pays for clickers” paradigm grew from one primary driver: device care and accountability. Harvard’s Graduate School of Education is using clickers this week for professional development workshops. By Monday end of day, 19 out of 100 clickers “walked off” accidentally in the pockets and purses of participants.

Derek and I have had the “analogies” discussion before. Graphing calculators maintain utility outside the classroom, as do textbooks (even given that the modern textbook publishing system is idiosyncratic and vexing). Therefore, a student may reasonably be asked to purchase those learning technologies. But imagine the absurdity of asking a student to pay a direct surcharge for taking a class that utilizes a digital projector or Scantron grading – it doesn’t make sense. Almost all students already own a phone.

Ease of Use and the Future

SMS and other cell phone methods will be simpler than clickers. Why? There are be no batteries for schools to replace. Students have positive confirmation and a record of what they submitted. Students don’t have to register their device online. Instructors can use SMS slides in PowerPoint that don’t require installing an add-in. By the end of this summer, we’ll support single-keypress responses.

Looking to the future, online clicker content communities will probably start to succeed, and potentially surpass publisher models (it’s an easier nut to crack than textbooks). Opt-in “anonymized” benchmarking could allow instructors to compare a part of their teaching efficacy to peer averages. As tired as appending this suffix is, I might dare call it Clickers2.0. Derek: We’ll be there ASAP. We’re passionate, growing, and sleeping very little (: