We are looking into using a classroom feedback system - probably the
Personal Response System (PRS) that Prentic Hall distributes. There were a
couple of old posts in the archive, but systems like this change rapidly in
a couple of years, so I was hoping some of you might have some experience
and opinions.
My basic questions are:
* What systems are available?
* How difficult it to use the hardware?
* How difficult is it to use the software?
* Do you make students buy the units, bolt them to the table, or hand them
out each class? Why?
* What types of activities do you do with the system? How frequently?
* What kind of information is stored? How do you use that information?
* (Most importantly) Do you think it aids student learning?
Thanks
Tim Folkerts
Instructor of Physics
Barton County Community College
Great Bend, KS
620-792-9320
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing." Edmund Burke
-----Original Message-----
From: Ludwik Kowalski [mailto:kowalskil@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU]
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 3:26 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: BlackBoard users
BlackBoard, now version 6, is a popular
software package for teaching over the
Internet. I am using its quiz and grade book
tools to supplement face-to-face interactions.
To my horror I discovered that while the mean
grade calculated by Blackboard (for any given
column) is correct the corresponding standard
deviation is much too small. It would be a
disaster if scores were turned into letter grades
by using their standard deviation. How comes
that such bug has not been discovered years
ago?
Please check my observation on your campuses;
the bug might be local, not general. And please
share your observations, especially if it is a false
alarm. To perform statistical analysis on a set of
scores (in a column) do ths:
a) go to CONTROL PANEL, then to GRADEBOOK
b) Click on the name of a column you want
c) From a menu that appears click ITEM DETAILS
This will display the results.
Ludwik Kowalski