Clicker

Clickers have been a part of the education/entertainment scene now for some years. They are simple remote personal response systems which are used in group situations to answer questions from a group leader. Using clickers with well designed questions encourages more effective, more efficient, and more engaging communication.

Yet clickers are another physical item for users to carry, they have a cost and if they are not available when needed their value diminishes. I developed this application to run in a "computer lab" environment as a replacement for a physical clicker. The advantage for the user is that they don't have to buy it and or remember to bring it to a session.

The clicker software consists of 2 applications. One runs on a "master" computer and the other runs on any clients that are attached to the same network. A third element is required for these two applications to interact and that is a MySQL database. The database is a simple two table database which stores the client responses to the questions. Once the users have responded, the "Master" application then retrieves the data from the database and displays it in a window which can be projected for all to see.

I have had the Clicker working now in 4 "lab" environments at work running on XP work stations. I have also tested the Clicker on an "upgraded" Vista operating system. All seems to work as expected! I will test it further on a "clean" installation and update this comment accordingly with the results.

Features

Overview
Clicker is an application that provides a mechanism to record and display the responses of users to a question asked by a lecturer/leader.

Installation
The files required for this application have not been packaged into an installer. Therefore some intervention is needed by support staff to get these applications to work. Firstly Microsoft .NET Framework Version 1.1 will need to be loaded on any XP workstation on which you want to run this application. The files in the Clicker download zip file will need to be copied to a suitable location. We use C:\Program Files\NGClicker\ A local INI file NGClicker.ini will define for the Cicker the locations of the MySQL database, together with appropriate access credentials. The MySQL database will need to be set up so that users on the intended clients can access it. The two table structure of the database can be set up using the following:

CREATE Database clicker;
USE clicker
CREATE table main (
	sessionid CHAR(12),
	questionid INT,
	date CHAR(8), time Char(4),
	username VARCHAR(15),
	computername VARCHAR(20),
	click CHAR(1) DEFAULT 0,
	changed CHAR(1) DEFAULT 0);
create table markers (
	sessionid CHAR(12),
	questionid INT);

The files in the Clicker download zip file were taken taken off of an operational workstation so should work if the instructions above are followed.

Activation
Clicker is activated by a shortcut located in the "Start" menu. NOTE: The client applications will only load if the "Control" or "Master" application has been started. In practice although we copy in both the Control/Master application and the Client application I only provide shortcut in the Start Menu for the Clients in a group of workstations and of course one machine will have the shortcut for the Control/Master.

Operation
The Master/Control application must be activated before any Client application will work! The controls on the Master/Control application are straightfoward and easy to get the hang of. At the end of the session the Master/Control application will delete the record from the session out of the database. It is possible for the application to write the records from the database into a log file. this is activated in the NGCkicker.INI file...