New Interactive Classroom Software at King’s
By: Ashley Cerasaro

Students now have a new way to participate in class. TurningPoint, an interactive software companion of PowerPoint, is in use in two classrooms on the King’s College campus. According to Peter Phillips, Information & Instructional Technology Services (IITS) Academic & Instructional Designer, the software will be up and running in another classroom by October.

TurningPoint, an audience response system that allows students to be directly involved in instructors’ lessons, is comprised of both software and hardware. The software is TurningPoint from Turning Technologies in Ohio. It integrates with PowerPoint and it helps instructors generate question-and-answer slides. Hardware refers to the sensor that plugs into the host computer as well as the students’ individual remote controls.

After a professor directs a question to his or her class, students can use their remote controls to hit a number that corresponds with that answer. When the slide is advanced, TurningPoint generates a chart that represents that data. Professors are given immediate feedback that allows them to direct their discussion accordingly.

Psychology professor Jeffrey Kegolis and Physician’s Assistant professor Diana Easton have been using the TurningPoint system all semester. Both say it helps them to see what topics their class is grasping and which areas they need to review further.

According to Phillips, IITS’s first demonstration, which took place May 16 on Technology for Teaching Day, wasn’t the most successful venture. The infrared response pads, which are similar to television remote controls, wouldn’t work unless they were pointed directly at the television. Also, the person with remote #4 would answer and #7 would light up on the screen. But after assessing these problems and consulting with Turning Technologies, IITS managed to get it up and running to near-perfection in early September. IITS has since upgraded to radio frequency remotes that students can point at the floor and the receiver will still pick up the answer.

TurningPoint was an IITS decision made by Bill Keating, Managing Director of Academic & Instructional Services, Ray Pryor, Managing Director of User Services and Paul Moran, Executive Director of IITS. They chose this particular program because of King’s affiliation with Dell, with which King’s makes the majority of its computer deals.

Phillips says that until IITS works out a solution on the network end, they can only ensure anonymous data, which doesn’t allow for student identification. There is an external file that can tell professors which students are saying what or which students aren’t participating at all. Without that file, data remains anonymous.

The University of Akron in Ohio is using a similar system called the Classroom Performance System (CPS). Dr. David A. McConnell, a professor of geology who spearheaded the program, reported that the students were overwhelmingly positive. This is based on a survey of 1,600 students conducted a year after the university’s pilot program.