Getting students involved in a classroom with an iPhone app

A common approach to assess comprehension during lecturing is to regularly interrupt the lectures with questions addressed to the audience. In its basic form, the questions are open for anyone to respond and are often answered by the selected few who are inherently able to respond - a situation that naturally leads to a false generalization of learning in progress. A better approach involves randomly selecting a student to answer the questions or using a classroom response system to gain feedback from the whole class. The later typically requiring more preparation from instructors while questions are limited to true/false and multiple choice formats. For random selection, instructors often rely on 'picking-out-of-a-hat' method which like the classroom response system has the added benefit of keeping the class attentive. To automate this activity an Apple iOS App, called Pikme, was developed that can be operated on an iPhone or an iPod Touch devices for instructional use. Pikme was designed to allow instructors to randomly select a student from the class and be able to quickly assess their response for latter evaluation. The app enables instructors to generate a photo-roster that can be shuffled through by shaking the device. This approach was utilized in two different courses on regular basis to gauge understanding and simultaneously improve class participation. The paper highlights the features of Pikme, presents the key outcomes of this implementation from the instructor's perspective, and discusses a survey of student responses to the use of such a technology in classrooms. Overall the students felt the app provided an opportunity for everyone to contribute and as a result improved their comfort towards voluntary class participation.