Just like most students on Penn State campus, I spent the first couple weeks of the

semester purchasing all the required materials for my classes. I bought stationary, textbooks, and
even software, but perhaps the oddest item on my list was the small, plastic remote-type device
called the iClicker. This sole purpose of this device is to check class attendance and answer inclass questions. It costs $40 and though it is not particularly bad device, it is very much
antiquated for our forward-thinking university.

The main issues with the iClicker revolve around its cost, failure to uphold academic integrity,
and the extra labor it induces. For a majority of students, the classes that require iClickers are
usually in the first couple semesters, as towards the end of their college experience, the classes
are more focused and do not require the iClickers. Therefore, once those classes are over, the
clickers essentially become useless as they have no other use and are not worth reselling as it is
cheaper to buy a new one. In addition to that, iClickers are a huge reason that many students are
able to skip classes and allow for others to earn their grade for them. In a lecture hall with 150200 students, clickers are a good way to record attendance and assign graded questions as it puts
less work on the instructor. However, with that being said, any student can simply give their
clicker to a friend and have them click in for attendance and in-class credit. And, as the class is
so large, professors have no efficient way to check the authenticity of the results. Lastly, when it
comes to labor, whenever a professor wants to use the iClicker system, they have to bring the
entire receiver as well as any supporting software to make it work. On the student end, in

addition to all the students responsibilities, they have to remember to bring their clickers, which
are often times easily forgotten.
In order to eliminate this high cost, maintain academic integrity, and reduce labor, my
plan is to introduce a high tech solution. According to the Pew Research Centers study on
students and mobile devices, 96% of all students have smart phones and 92% have laptops (1).
Additionally, with the trend generally resulting in more and more students using such mobile
devices, it only makes sense for schools to switch to this trend. Instead of using the clunky
clickers, students should have the option to use their smartphones or laptops for such survey type
assignments. For this service, professors should use online survey software which correlates to
mobile applications available on both cell phones and laptops. This would allow for a much
seamless and effective transgression of technology as students would no longer feel the hardships
felt by the iClicker technology. In an ideal situation, professors would have installed software on
their computers that could receive input from the mobile applications. On the student side, they
would simply need to bring their mobile device, which many students do anyways, resulting in
no extra strain on the student or professors. Obviously, it would not be possible to implement a
completely working solution instantly as it requires change on both the professor end and student
end. In order to compensate for this, I would recommend that this project be rolled out slowly.
For the first year, the university could implement a solution where they accept both clicker
responses and mobile responses (as the iClicker software has the ability to accept both as an
input though it is paid). Then, as soon as a huge majority of people have completely stopped
using clickers, we could completely abandon them and switch to a free option such as Kahoot. In
the long term, students and teachers could use this free software to interact in the classroom
setting allowing for better, more integrated classroom experience.

In comparison to the current system, my solution serves to be a better replacement in

cost, academic integrity, and labor. Starting in terms of cost, on the university side, in the long
run, the university saves money on iClickers. According to the iClicker website, a base costs
$300. As these bases can break, have technical issues, and overall issues, they require
maintenance, which can be very expensive. With my solution, simply software is used, removing
the issue of the iClicker base system cost as all professors have computers. On the student end,
for the initial roll out of the iClickers, the cost would be between $10-$30 for their college
experience as they would be charged based on how much they used the service. Then, as
iClickers are slowly rolled out, the cost would be zero as many services, like Kahoot, do not
require the use of paid services.
In addition to cost, for academic integrity, the mobile system serves to be a much better
replacement as well. Students are fairly comfortable giving their iClickers to friends to click in
with because they have no other real use for them so it wont matter as much. However, when it
comes to mobile devices like smart phones and laptops, many of these same behaviors would
stop. Students would not be comfortable giving their friends their cellphones or laptops because
they use these devices ALL of the time and they have lots of private data. In addition, it would
logically cause errors as friends could not contact each other as one person would have both
phones. As a result, a service require mobile devices would be much more useful as issues in
clicker sharing would almost completely be removed.
Lastly, in terms of labor, the new system would be very much beneficial to both
professors and students. For professors, no longer would they need to carry a base system for the
clickers. Professors could simply install software on their laptops and run the iClicker
information on them. As professors already do this, by using the software on the computer, they

would be able to remove a huge hurdle that comes in the way of effective teaching.On the
student side, the entire issue of clicker misplacement would be gone. Most students tend to never
forget their phones back in their dorms as they are always using them. As a result, student
responses would increase much more as there would be less students with no clickers.

Works Cited
"Iclicker 7 Software vs REEF Polling by Iclicker - Iclicker." Iclicker. IClicker, n.d. Web. 08 Nov.
2015. <https://www1.iclicker.com/reef-polling-vs-iclicker-7/>.

"Increase Response Rate and Quality." Increase Response Rate and Quality. University of
California at Berkeley, n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. <https://teaching.berkeley.edu/increaseresponse-rate-and-quality>.
Lestor, Tom. "INCREASING AND MAINTAINING ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT." CLASSROOM
TEACHING STRATEGIES (n.d.): n. pag. Positive Environment, Network of Trainers. State of
California. Web. 8 Nov. 2015. <http://www.pent.ca.gov/pos/cl/increasingengagement.pdf>.
Smith, Aaron, Lee Rainie, and Kathryn Zickuhr. "College Students and Technology." Pew
Research Center Internet Science Tech RSS. Pew Research Center, 18 July 2011. Web. 16 Nov.
2015. <http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/07/19/college-students-and-technology/>.