[LON-CAPA-users] Using clickers in the fall?

[Gerd Kortemeyer]

Hi,

On Jun 17, 2007, at 9:29 PM, lucasm@ohiou.edu wrote:

>
> So in three or four sentences can you describe what this means?

i>clickers produce the following kind of output file (skipping all  
the garbage):

#003F86B9,"",0,D,0,1.650,1,D,1.650,,,,,,,,,,,,,
#00573C6B,"",0,,,,,,,,,,,,,B,0,5.017,1,B,5.017,
#005BC59E,"",0,D,0,4.417,1,D,4.417,E,0,3.550,1,E,3.550,B,0,0.700,1,B, 
0.700,
#005CD488,"",0,C,0,8.000,1,C,8.000,C,0,6.183,1,C,6.183,B,0,2.200,1,B, 
2.200,
#00629AF8,"",0,B,0,11.000,1,B,11.000,D,0,8.600,1,D,8.600,B, 
0,3.600,1,B,3.600,

The first column is the clicker ID, the following columns are their  
first and last answer to each question in a session, as well as some  
timing information.

Students and faculty can register their clicker(s) in their LON-CAPA  
user preferences. This information is available across courses and  
semesters, so you only need to do this once.

For each lecture in your course, you need to put a Score Upload Form  
into your DOCS, the same form you would use for CSV upload, etc.

When a clicker file is uploaded to that Score Upload Form, LON-CAPA  
uses the classlist to match the clicker IDs with the usernames. If  
you are grading based on attendance only, you can already assign  
grades. If you want to grade based on correctness, you can either  
specify which ID's response LON-CAPA should consider as correct, or  
let LON-CAPA find your clicker (i.e., course coordinator, instructor,  
etc), and grade based on that.

In the end each student gets *one* partial credit per session  
("lecture") for the Grade Upload Form, e.g.,

(75%*3+100%*5)/(3+5)=90.625%

for 3 incorrect answers with 75% credit and 5 correct answers with  
100% credit.

Other parameters, such as weight, work, and you can manipulate this  
like any other grade in GRDS.

I had considered doing this on a per-question base, but it seems  
overkill, particularly if you ask three or four clicker questions per  
lecture. It also requires more cumbersome configuration to specify  
how many questions you have, which you may or may not know before the  
start of the lecture, and which you might want to change on the fly,  
depending how things are going ... this way, you have one grade per  
lecture, and there was no need to implement a new kind of form or  
mechanism in DOCS - it just reuses what LON-CAPA already has.

Besides, traditionally, this is only a small percentage of the grade.

Advantages:

* registration right in LON-CAPA, across semesters and courses
* lecture clicker grade ends up right in your gradebook, and is  
treated like any other grade

Disadvantage:

* sophistication level is low

>
> We use interwrites IR PRS clickers, but don't use the lesson  
> capability or the Powerpoint integration. We basically just use it  
> as a data recorder.

Georgetown also uses Interwrite - we already contacted the  
representative to see if the license is compatible, and see if I can  
get a demo unit to work with.

Interwrite supports more answer types, which already makes me  
worried. I don't want to re-invent or re-implement all of LON-CAPA's  
assessment system for clicker operation, e.g., numerical tolerances,  
significant digits, rank grading, etc.

- Gerd.