LectureTools allows instructors and students to interact in new ways in and out of classrooms. Developer Perry Samson talks about its potential for learning and for the future of textbooks.
Like this? Let us know with a $5 donation, so we can do more
College instructors are increasingly using "student response systems" to encourage interactive learning in their classrooms. Most existing systems use "clickers," relatively limited standalone devices which students must purchase. Perry Samson, a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Michigan, has developed a web-based technology, LectureTools, which allows students to use devices they already have: laptops, tablet PCs, even smartphones. LectureTools lets them interact in and out of a classroom in a wide variety of ways. For example, students can
- take notes and associate them with the instructors' slideware presentation,
- draw on the instructors' slides,
- ask questions of the instructor during the class,
- indicate their level of confidence with the material, and
- respond to a variety of questions. For example, students can answer questions using images; they can establish associations between concepts and ideas, and they can reorder texts, statements and arguments.
- Students can also review their notes and a lecture podcast or video after class.
In this video, Perry Samson talks about the present and the future of LectureTools and how it may save textbook publishing -- by providing an affordable and smart electronic textbook.