Water Cooler Games

a forum for the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment



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Audience Response System for games in schools
January 28, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

The New York Times published an article today about using audience response systems -- those handheld devices used to poll gameshow audiences -- for classroom games. One school district in southern California spent half a million bucks on them, and others have followed suit.

In a typical system, the clickers record data from individuals, and transmit that information, through wireless technology, to a computer program. The program can instantly display the results, tally them and present them in elaborate spreadsheets and eye-catching graphics like spaceships or “Jeopardy!”-style boards. It can track the percentage of correct answers received for each question as well as the participation rate among all users.
It sounds like little more than quiz-show style question and answer, which I suppose is a perfect complement to our test-performance obsessed schools. But I'm sure there's the potential to do much more with them too.




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