With EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office) right around the corner, what better way to practice the multiple choice questions from last year then on the SMARTBoard.

Take it one step further. By creating clicker questions from last year’s multiple choice, you can easily determine which strands your students need help in and which they excel in, by exporting the results into graphs.

Not only can you determine who got what right / wrong in a matter of seconds, you can show the results to the class and have them determine which questions were done poorly, just by looking at the bar graph.

The one issue I have is time. You cannot move onto the next question until everyone is done with the previous question. Some students require more time and might feel pressured to asnwer, giving inaccurate results. I would suggest leaving the question up for a period while they are practicing something else at their seats. The clicker question can be answered anytime in that period. Have the slower students start first. There are many ways to help this issue, i’m sure you are thinking of a few now.

The point is, EQAO practice should be fun. These kids are already terrified of a standardized test. Bring in the technology, graph the results, have debates over split views on open response questions. The possibilities seem endless to me.

admin General clickers, EQAO, Senteo, SMARTBoard

I’ve always used the SMARTBoard clickers with intermediate grades prior to last week. My goal was to show each primary class the basics of answering YES / NO questions on the clickers (we hope to have a school wide survey soon, on the clickers).

There were no difficulties logging in, especially with the Senteo Simulator running (both anonymous mode and with ID’s). However, many of the younger students needed constant reassurance of correctness, even though their clicker screen matched the simulator. I felt very exhausted by the end of the period.

I decided on my long drive home that each attempt at a clicker lesson would get better as the students got more comfortable using them. I don’t see them as a viable assessment tool (maybe diagnostic – maybe, or assessment FOR learning) but nothing more at the primary level.

Perhaps they are best used on the fly – during those teachable moments when you hope for split results to create a class debate. Or maybe they are best used to show younger students the concept of graphing – pie charts and bar graphs.

ROI? I’m not sure they are worth the cost at this point. Please comment with ideas.

admin General clickers, Senteo, SMARTBoard