
Confused in Class? There's an App for that - liamk
http://understoodit.com/
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X4
Our CompSci Prof. uses something built in-house by students to evaluate who
understands what & whatnot in real-time too.

How long is this around? Two years. Works.

He uses his iPad to present his slides wirelessly to our beamer and a student
voluntarily manages the polls and when enough people haven't understood a
topic, the student hits a button and the slide updates the graph, then the
Prof focuses on that topic a little more.

That sounds more complicated than it is, it's dead easy and flawless, despite
the fact that our Prof is an iDiot or iNerd, hehe :) He's just a huuge fan of
everything Apple.

It challenges everyone to cooperate, thankfully it's anonymous, so we can fool
around too, but the Prof notices that :D

In my eyes, the skill to built this is really low compared to the other stuff
we've done, but it's a nice tool. Unfortunately most Prof just don't fucking
care and go-on with their one-man-show.

PS: Our Prof uses the stats and data generated to create the exam also ;)

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Kartificial
Nice concept! Although I can imagine this only works in large classrooms, as
where I'm used to have pretty small sized classes (~30).

I have had the opportunity to experiment with something like a voting system.
The teacher mixed his lecture with some (multiple choice) questions the
students can answer via the voting system. This created a far more dynamic
lecture with instant feedback on the answers provided. Maybe a feature you
want to consider? Because with the smartphones and tablet these days you
eliminate the need for an extra device (like we were experimenting with).

Besides this all, the site looks broken here (Fx 12.0, Vista) because the CSS
is not loaded. IE8 in Vista is also messy (with a loaded CSS file).

~~~
liamk
Adding multiple choice questions is certainly something I'm considering!

I'm using a web font from font deck and it seems to be slow loading which
blocks the rest of the page from loading...

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liamk
I'm the developer behind understoodit.com - any feedback on understoodit.com
would be much appreciated!

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gee_totes
Allow me to get out some luddite hate first:

-there's already an app for getting feedback if you don't understand... it's called RAISING YOUR HAND!!!!!11!

-are you going to add a "distractometer" to log how many times people are distracted by using and checking the app?

Ok, now that that's done. I would actually lose the "o-meter" phrasing and
have the app simply say "Confused" and "Understand". In fact, you could even
lose the "understand" interaction. I doubt people will be hitting a button all
the time every time they "understand" something during a lecture. Just have
one button for confusion.

Is there a way to post feedback (anonymously) at the end of a lecture?

Radical piviot: you know what this model of instant feedback would be good
for? Occupy Wall Street and general assemblies.

~~~
liamk
Thanks for the feedback! In large classes students tend to be reluctant to
raise their hands (especially in classes with 200+ students). ESL students are
also unlikely to raise their hand and say they don't get it. I actually tested
the app in 3 first year classes and it didn't seem to be distracting.

I'm hoping to add a feature for leaving feedback at the end of a lecture,
great idea!

Also great idea on the Occupy Wall Street idea!

~~~
ballstothewalls
I go to a small college where average class size is around 20 students. People
hardly ever raise their hand.

Overwhelming majority of students are deathly afraid of looking like an idiot
by raising their hand. It happens everywhere, not just large classrooms.

I think this is a great idea.

~~~
mbreese
I went to a small college too... In a class of 10-20, it was pretty easy for
the professors to know when we were confused since she was looking at each of
us.

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dreadsword
Great concept - quality is definitely an issue in the classroom setting that
traditional methods of control do little to address - i.e.: end of term
surveys etc.

Thinking freely here:

Could you produce a report for the school's administration of each professor's
confused/understood ratio?

As gee-totes suggested, a messaging system would close the feedback loop
nicely.

Is there a means of authenticating students? If this tool became a means of
evaluation, it would be open to gaming by cagey professors.

Anyway, nice work, good video, great idea!

~~~
liamk
Thanks!

Great suggestion, producing a report is a great idea. I could even use the
confusion data to predict exam test scores.

If students are going to be evaluating their teachers (providing richer
feedback than confused/understood), then you're correct there will have to be
authentication for students.

~~~
mbreese
Be careful with cumulative evaluations - how confused students are may not
correlate with how good a teacher is. And, if professors are going to be
evaluated with the results, they are less likely to use the tool well...

For authentication, I'd make it so that when the professor each session, the
class is given a random 4-5 digit code. That way the students would have to be
in class to get the code and participate.

You may also want to think about adding the ability for the instructor to add
different buttons, not just "understood / confused". You could then have class
polls, or group questions to see how many people are paying attention.

This should all be able to be controlled from the instructor dashboard.

~~~
liamk
Good thoughts! The 4-5 digit code would be a good way of differentiating
between sessions/lecture. When adding class polls etc, it my be advantageous
to give each student their own account. That could conflict with the current
anonymous aspect of understoodit.com though.

~~~
mbreese
I'd keep it anonymous... you want people answering honestly and not worrying
what the instructor might think. I'm thinking polls like:

 _okay class, we just went over big-O. here is an algorithm... what do you
think the big-O of this is: O(n), O(n^2), etc..._

Nothing that you'd have to keep track of the answers for longer than the
length of the class.

Plus, if you added logins, that would just make it that much more of a setup /
hassle to get classes going.

~~~
Bromero
I agree about anonymity. I'm a high school teacher and there are a bunch of
smartphone apps that let students send in answers to multiple choice questions
that the teacher puts on the board (I think it's called SmartResponse). The
problem is, all responses have the students' phone numbers attached. So
privacy concerns make it so that an otherwise useful product is basically
unusable. Obviously the level of concern would be different in
College/University, but I think students might be less inclined to use the app
if it is not anonymous.

That said, this is a great idea. This is the kind of real-time feedback that I
would love to have access to. Many of my students would rather fail than put
their hand up and ask for help. Something like this would really help them
out.

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zitterbewegung
Is everyone expected to have a smartphone now a days? I really don't want a
class to require a smartphone to participate. This would be much better as a
web app.

~~~
liamk
It currently is a web app! I tried to communicate that in the video, pictures
and text on the website.

~~~
nollidge
How did you try to communicate that? I cannot find any indication one way or
the other. Just showing it on a laptop and a phone is not good enough - maybe
you have native apps on multiple platforms. Plus the phrase "there's an app
for that" is almost always associated with native apps, not web apps.

I would specifically say something like "nothing to download or install!".

~~~
liamk
I mentioned "Understoodit runs on devices that you and your students already
own: smartphones, tablets, netbooks and notebooks." But I agree I think saying
'nothing to download or install' is a great idea, thanks!

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sparknlaunch12
Really like this. Has wider application than the classroom. Think gathering
market/customer feedback to a new advertisement or TV show.

This was being used before the smartphone, so imagine similar products exist.
However your metrics look meaningful.

~~~
OzzyB
For reference, Quick Tally[1], has been operating a service along these lines
for over a decade or more.

It isn't web-based, and IIRC they offer/sell a voting widget to TV producers
that can be given to audience members to vote with.

Worthy of a "web 2.0/iOS" disruption me thinks...

[1]<http://www.quicktally.com/>

P.S. Well done OP, that's a great concept and nicely (MVP?) executed.

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treelovinhippie
Simple solution to a big problem. Well done guys. Get it into the hands of
lecturers, get feedback and iterate.

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ryeguy_24
What a fantastic idea for teacher feedback. I can see this being useful in
every single classroom.

