With the constant dropping, the batteries have been shaking loose more often, and that means I have to hear the plaintive,

“My cliiiiiiicker doesn’t wooooooooork.”

“Sounds like operator error to me. Bring it here…”

And I have to use my little jeweler’s screwdriver to take off the battery cover, and adjust the batteries back into place. Over the past few months, the threads have been stripping on some of the battery covers, making the battery problem worse, and thus there have been more clicker “issues” and more whining. So I called EInstruction and asked if they could just send me some battery covers and screws. I could have my servants service all the injured clickers, and we’d be back in business for minimal cost.

The service rep put me on hold for a few minutes. When she returned, she tells me that those clickers have a lifetime warranty.

“We’ll just send you new ones. How many do you need?”

“Wha? Really? I only really need the battery covers.”

“No, we’ll just send you new ones. How many do you think you need?”

“Well, the whole set is getting to be pretty tattered, and…maybe a whole set (32)?”

“OK. Can I get your info?”

“Do I have to send the old ones back?”

“Oh no. Sometimes people let their shop and tech classes take them apart and whatnot. We’ll send you a new set right away. Anything else?”

OMG. Customer service doesn’t get any better than that. A whole lot better than our IST department.

So they arrived a couple days ago. New bag and everything. And they’re ALL the newer white IR (infrared) model. No more #20 specialness. Everybody is special now.  Many of the kids whoa-ed and gazed and savored that first look like it was a new cell phone.

“We’re all special now.” Someone actually said it.

“Yes you are.”

But the even better part was that EInstruction sent me a new receiver as well. Instead of  one “window” on the front for seeing the kids’ clickers, this one ( in groovy iWhite like the new clickers) has windows on three sides. The kids can click from anywhere in the room, and not have to actually point at the target. They’re working almost as well as the even groovier RF (radio frequency) models we test drove last year. They can pretty much point anywhere and still have it register. Which is huge. With all the shoot-em-up video games they play, you’d think their aim would be better.

Of course when I tell them I tested the new clickers from all over room, they have to start testing too.

“I just pointed it at your head. And it worked!”

“I pointed it at the Popple! And it worked!”

Fast forward through three minutes of arm-waving, kung-fu clicking (”It doesn’t change whether your answer is correct or not.” “I don’t care.”) and jabbering — you’d think I had a class full of, well… you get the picture. Through it all, the clickers were solid. But in seventh grade, there’s always at least one…

“I tried pointing it in my mouth. It didn’t work.”

(collective ewwwwww)

“I didn’t test them there.”

(The RF models would have worked. They even worked when one kid put it in his pocket.)

Part One (minutes 1-6) of a typical day in Mr. Coward’s class, doodle stylie:

As the kids come in, they know to take out their notebooks (and their clickers) and get ready for the  inevitable warm up.

Most days, the warm up is a CPS lesson with our vocabulary, spelling, or academic words.

There are usually 6 sentences they have to copy and fill in the  proper word for. I rerun these on Friday’s test. When we go over the warm up, I can write on it with my wireless slate (also good for writing instructions live).

While they are doing the warm up (we’ll go over it in six minutes: cue the Timer), I  circulate up and down the aisles (tripping over backpacks and gangly middle schoolers “low-riding” in their seats) checking whatever homework is due. This is a check. We’ll actually go over it and correct it later in the period.

After they have completed the warm up, we go over it. I use my wireless slate to circle the correct answers on the screen and write hints. I can also flip the pen over, and use the built-in laser pointer to emphasize (or annoy).

Click for full size.

You get four categories with 5 questions each, with game point values from 10 to 50. You take previous questions you have used, and drag them into the categories and amounts. Since I have waaay more than 20 questions, we do multiple rounds. I use this as a quiz grade instead of having a final exam (they also do a project). Since each round has 600 game points possible, an A would be 540, a B 480, and so forth. I make each round worth 10 class points, so 540 = 9/10 and the winning team getting +3 more per round. I have enough boards for four rounds, but we usually only get two rounds in. Each group has a “clicker jockey” and a piece of paper with A B C D E F G in large letters. The first time I did this, the kids all “whispered” their answers to their jockey loud enough for Grampa Ott (not to mention the other groups) to hear, so after about three questions of that we came up with the pointing paper. Now there’s all kinds of jabbing and grunting and bouncing up and down. (More at TeachingtheOutsiders.com)

I updated The Outsiders CPS clicker database to include the three new quizzes about literary terms (30 new questions based on the book – here’s a sample), AND three 20-question Challenge Boards.

Get the new one here.

Roots List #1
Fragments and Run-Ons

This week’s news: It’s all cheap now. Most things, except the 200 question novel units, are a buck or two. And those novel units are only 10 bucks. Go crazy.

So, even if the software is free, why would I want any of these lessons/databases, if I don’t have the clickers?
You still get all the questions and answers, and the CPS software has a “print questions” feature that exports the questions to an Acrobat document (.pdf), a word processing document (.rtf), or a web page (.html), and you can just plain ol’ print them. Or make overheads. It’s also easy to add, subtract, modify any of the lessons. Install the software, download the samples, and check it out.

Why can’t I just get all the questions from your web site?
You can. But then you have to enter all of them into your database. And there are no answers.

How do I use these with my CPS database?
After downloading, open YOUR CPS database, go to the Prepare-Lesson and Assessments tab. Right-Click on the name of your database (at the top of all your lessons), and choose import. Browse for the downloaded database. Check the lessons you want to import.

How often will you have new material?
All the time. Coming very soon are databases for The Midwife’s Apprentice, academic words, and several grammar/mechanics concepts. Then analogies, Latin/Greek roots, punctuation and spelling, vocabulary. I use the clickers every day for almost everything, so it’s just a matter of time until I have a database for almost everything. Check back often. (Who doesn’t say that?)

What if I think there’s a wrong answer or if I have a problem?
E-mail me at cps@cps.mrcoward.com

A few years ago I was the lead teacher for an EETT (Enhancing Education Through Technology) grant our site received. Over the course of two years, our site received a truckload of money (like a couple hundred grand) to spend on technology training (from me) and a whole lotta shtuff. Among other things, we bought lcd projectors and computers and wireless slates and some SmartBoards and several sets of CPS “clickers.”

The Classroom Performance System consists of software, a USB receiver that looks like a flying saucer, and 32 “clickers” that look like remote controls. You make up series of questions (grouped into what they call lessons) with multiple choice answers. Then you project the warm up, quiz, whatever, on your lcd projector, and the kids click the appropriate button on their clickers. You can set a time limit for each question, and it displays (live) who has answered (but not what they answered), and when the time is up, it displays how many kids chose each answer, and optionally, the correct answer. (Beauty for teaching opportunities: “Now, it looks like a lot of you chose B, and that was wrong; let’s talk about why you might have thought that was right…”)

And, even better, you can use the paper tests, quizzes, etc. that you already have. The software has a FastGrade feature which lets you simply enter the correct answers (it doesn’t need to know the questions, does it?), hand out the test, and start the software. The clickers have forward and backward buttons, and the kids can simply arrow their way though the test, answering each question by clicking the appropriate letter. They can go back and forth, and change their answers at any time. They can all be on different questions at different times and everything. If your test has short answer or essay questions too, the software lets you skip those quesions when they’re clicking, so you can grade that part after.

I hate to sound like a shill for this, but it has definitely changed how I do things. Almost all warm ups and pretests and quizzes are “clicker stylie.” Almost the only grading I have to do now is writing. They still copy the warm ups (to practice spelling, reinforce the lesson, and to have something to study), but they also click in their answers, so there’s no more “trade and grade” or red pens or recording all the warm up scores (the software has a gradebook). The Friday tests used to kill 15 minutes of a subsequent period in grading and going over. Now it’s graded, and we have gone over the answers, in a single period. Even better, I can easily do an item analysis to find out which questions most all of them missed.

You can also use them to just find out if they understood what you said without embarrassing anyone. Ask a question (the software calls it a “verbal question”), click go (or whatever) and the kids click. You can see how many got it and how many didn’t without singling anyone out.

BTW, the kids LOVE them. They go through withdrawal like a bunch of junkies on the few days we don’t use them.