This week The New York Times reported on the popularity of using clickers in the classroom to do live polling. This inspired me to write up why I use clickers in a class of 700 students at Queen’s University, a post that I write once a year, because I find my perspective changes as I get more accustomed to this edTech. So here goes.

Why Clickers Rock

Clickers are such a simple technology, but used strategically, they can produce profound results. For me, the tiny devices are the quintessential disruptive mobile teaching technology.

Why? First, they certainly disrupt “the nap schedules of anyone who might have hoped to catch a few winks in the back row,” as The Times points out. Honestly I’ve not found that to be a big issue in my classes, but the point is a key one: having students use clickers activates the lesson, because to put it simply, in the words of one student: “it makes you pay attention.”

There are several varieties of clickers on the market, and they each have different features, so depending on your teaching goals, you’ll want to compare them all, and weigh the costs and functions, as I did—and ask your techie peers what they’re using, which I also did. The Times profiled Turning Point devices. I chose the iClicker brand for its simplicity in design and ease of use, plus, I’m a Mac user and found that brand synced with both PowerPoint and Keynote painlessly. (Disclaimer: after using iClicker for two years I was invited to blog for them at TheActiveClass.com, where we review all kinds of edTech tips, tricks, and trends from video lecturing to QR codes and smartphones in the classroom.)

Transparent technology

Clickers are intuitive, meaning millennial students don’t have to be taught how to use them—though I do teach them how to register them, using slideshare. Profs, on the other hand, do need to be taught how to use them, or at least how to integrate them into the lessons and what to expect from this edTech tool—and here’s a super clear video from UC Irvine that I’ve recommended many times to my faculty peers.

My brand of choice is designed with exactly 5 buttons, which means zero feature creep, and that suits my teaching style perfectly, keeping the focus on the lesson, not the technical gadgetry. In fact, I can integrate the clicker polling throughout the lesson, seamlessly, so that the technology becomes almost transparent. Then the emphasis is on the results, which can be pretty profound.

Feedback loops

Just asking students to report on their opinions, or share their consumer habits, or answer simple questions, can change the direction of the lecture or lesson plan. Polling them on their comprehension of the material covered last week gives students fast feedback, so they can see whether they are “getting it” (and of course, I can see that too, and perhaps backtrack…). And as any employer or teacher or parent knows, millennials expect and thrive on frequent feedback.

But the most amazing thing I have found with clickers is that they help to make the classroom a collaborative environment.

Socialize the class

In Professor Bill White’s course at Northwestern University, The Times reported that students appreciate the opportunity to anonymously check in with their peers, when the results of clicker-surveys are displayed, so they can see “whether their classmates shared their opinions.” And whether they do or not, if the questions are compelling enough, each clicker poll will cause a buzz in the classroom, as students click-in, then check-in with their peers. Instant engagement with course material in real-time, coupled with peer-to-peer discussion, of the sort that before I adopted clickers I used to have much more trouble inspiring outside small-group activities.

Make the ask

Thus the clickers are a kind of mobile technology that socializes the socializes the learning experience, bridging the digital–physical gap nicely. And through years of using them I have come to appreciate how important it is to make the ask—to genuinely and frequently inquire into students’ POV, experience, and perspectives. This should come as no surprise to those who study Gen Y: millennials like to be asked for their opinions.

I teach in the media and mass communications field, but most clicker classes I’ve found are in the sciences. My friend Derek Bruff (@derekbruff) maintains a very up-to-date massive bibliography of research papers on how to use these devices across the disciplines—Bruff wrote the book on using clickers, literally.

Millennial micro-engagement

The bottom line for me is that this 1-click engagement model for interactive teaching works wonders with GenY students, who are accustomed to rating, digging, liking, retweeting, and a variety of other 1-click modes of digital micro-engagement. For anyone teaching a big lecture class, I highly recommend looking into this super simple mobile gizmo for its capacity to deliver profound results.