"In 1997, four professors at the University of Illinois faced problems to enable student engagement and their attention on course contents. Consequently, they developed their own in-class voting system using the wireless radio frequency technology. Since then, iClicker appeared from the bottom of the dark ocean, and became many students' nightmare."[1]
When I joined the University of Waterloo back in 2018 as a frosh, I had mixed feelings. The excitements of being a university student, making my parents proud and passions of my future prospects, at least, did not overwhelm my negative emotions. I did not get too badly challenged in learning the course contents, but did realize I might have some problems in my financial situation as undergraduate studies would like to rip me off somehow. As a result, I would not blindly purchase whatever my courses required me to buy, but I took advices from upper year students (on reddit) to wait for classes to begin, and to get minimal items possible.
Now, eventually, I am one of the upper year students. When I look back at my first year, I think two items I ever purchased are the most dumb. Of course, one of them is the iClicker.[2]
It might not be necessary but let us review what is an iClicker exactly, then I will name some cons of it. It is either a little physical device or a mobile app students use to answer multiple-choice questions in lectures. The answers students have are recorded on the instructor's side, and may contribute to a portion of the student's final grade up to the instructor's discretion. If a student cares enough for their grade, then they are forced to attend the lecture in person for the sake of these participation points, and of course, they pay a little fee to purchase such device to do it.
Money problem?
We have a money problem: students need to buy an iClicker to be able to obtain those participation points[3].iClickers cost 50 USD each, or a little lower if one buys the digital (yearly) subscription. Students are scammed by textbooks already but that might be OK since they can choose to not buy / share one, but now they are further scammed by a seemingly cheaply-made plastic stick [4], and they have no choice. I have heard from some fellow students saying that iClickers are a waste of money; unfortunately, no, you got the grades.
If each year there are 1,000 new math students to buy an iClicker anew, then it will be
amount of money that goes into the iClicker company's pocket [5], excluding any fees that the instructors and the university pays. This amount of fund can be used in many, any, purposes.
Device problem?
Secondly, iClickers are dysfunctional. It might work most of the time, but once it stops working, the student is essentially screwed on that day. I have seen quite a few classes where, either my remote was not operative, or the teacher's receiving device was not starting up, and the tuning was completely a waste of time. For physical devices, the radio is not truly reliable, and is subject to interference and whatsoever.
Sick?
Forced attendance and iClicker-question-answering makes students unsecure if they care about, even if the 5% of, their grade. Even though the waves of COVID-19 has not completely gone yet, the eagerness of getting iClicker questions will encourage students to come to the campus even if they are sick.
The questions?
The quality of iClicker questions varies depending on the instructor and the course. As sometimes the correctness of student responses will matter in their final grades, those multiple choice questions act as a way of assessment. But they go extremes. One kind of question is the super dumb easy ones that does not require the students to think, which does not serve as assessments. The other kind is rather involved and needs students to think more and even do calculations sometimes. And sadly, due to the time constraint, students need to come up with whatever answers in very little time.[6] Some instructors are much more creative that they ask questions before the concepts were taught, which is more awesome.
Fewer upper-year courses will make use of iClickers as students progress their life at UW. by proof by example it is concluded that iClickers are not favorable in teaching. But why do 1st or 2nd year courses choose iClickers? I have compiled some reasons:
We need to combat these reasons.
What to do?
As a student I can say very little but for the sake of my own expression let us list something the school can do.
iClickers need to be gotten rid of for the sake of students' and the university's money. There can be a "no clicker questions" option, and the course instructors will need to
If in-class participation is desired, then it should be open to both students on campus and students that are watching live stream. Physical iClickers, and digital iClickers that require GPS, are not capable. There are many alternative devices available, such as Kahoot! (which is used by a number of arts classes) and they are more fun.
Furthermore, the school can develop an online-voting system that is free to all students, such as Marmoset and Seashell. Once it is set, it will have automatic integration with WatIAM system and is free of abuses, and saves students' and instructors' money from their pocket, then stay away from 3rd party vendors that always try to scam their clients and not care about students.
Notes:
Source: ,Der Untergang' 2004 (Oliver Hirschbiegel)
Thanks for your attention.