Wes Fryer writes about an Open Source alternative to Educational Testing Service's (ETS) Discourse. Discourse is a student response system, however, ETH Lecture Communicator offers a free, open source alternative to cash-strapped campuses/districts (and who isn't cash-strapped these days with our esteemed president proposing $0 for technology?).

For fun, I asked my team to setup ETH Lecture Communicator (link may not work now) and explore the possibilities. Although a more formal write-up with photos will be available to my school district campuses, here's a few quick reflections from the team:

ETH looks OK in the right situation. I see it as useful review system. I wish it had the ability to track the student's responses. The tool can improve the interaction in the classroom between instructor and students. The system uses a computer network wired or wireless.

The tool enables the instructor to create and carry out in-class online-assessments and facilitates organized instant communication for big classes.

Online-assessments can be constructed from questions of various types (e.g., multiple choice quizzes, item rating, item matching, lickert-scale, open-ended responses).

Students can ask questions if instructor allows it. Fellow students have then the possibility rate these questions to indicate if they are also interested in the question. Since the price is right, it is OK.

Runs in Windows in an application or web-browser. Runs in Mac OS X in an application or browser. Does not function in a Palm browser. Unsure on Pocket PC.
I would give it 3 of 5 stars.

Overall, it appears a quick, easy tool to use. I can certainly see this working in a lab setting or situation where most students had laptops (at least, one per group).

Posted by Miguel Guhlin at | +Del.icio.us |
Categories: MGuhlin.net, OpenLearning