Just a click away
March 31, 2012 11:50 AM   Subscribe

Voting via clicker with real time data visualization is happening in schools, churches, and loads of other organizations throughout the world. This NY Times piece examines how clicker voting is shaking things up.
posted by rageagainsttherobots (10 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
When will this be implemented in MetaTalk?
posted by cmoj at 12:19 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]


*clicks C*
posted by TheNewWazoo at 12:29 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]


I bet a few hundred knowledgeable fans could do a lot better than the so-called professional judges for sports like boxing and figure skating and gymnastics. And American Idol and those other reality game shows.
posted by bukvich at 12:54 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]


A show of hands or a paper ballot is auditable. Few of us would find it easy to confirm that clickers really do what they ostensibly do, or that the tabulated results are accurate. These are good for fun, but they are not suitable for voting on anything important.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:37 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]


I have been half-heartedly advocating for something like this for our city public meetings.

City politics is often dominated by loudmouths on both sides of a given issue and it's often hard to get a true sense of the feelings of the crowd when they are intimidated or just too shy to speak up.
posted by madajb at 1:38 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]


I consider myself pretty plugged in but I had never heard of this. I feel better that this will soon be an app on everybody's phone. That, I'm comfortable with.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 2:14 PM on March 31, 2012


It's not mentioned in the article, but these clickers can be used for more than voting or instant opinion polls. I had a Latin class in college where we used them. The prof would throw up a quick quiz and everyone would click in with an answer. It was handy - the professor could immediately tell if the class had understood the material without the slow turnaround of a regular quiz. If a large number of students answered incorrectly, he was able to clarify things right then.
posted by Wemmick at 2:26 PM on March 31, 2012 [2 favorites]


Few of us would find it easy to confirm that clickers really do what they ostensibly do, or that the tabulated results are accurate.


if there was a system using smartphones, where each voter had a unique ID, and the votes could be projected on a screen in front of the group for quick verification - something like that would be an excellent solution for facilitating quick votes or polls of groups that are too large for a show of hands. Or for examples like Wemmick's Latin class.

I don't think anyone's suggesting we use clickers for the next presidential election.
posted by dubold at 2:48 PM on March 31, 2012


if there was a system using smartphones....

posted by dubold


ICWUDT
posted by DU at 3:03 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]


The smart-clicker racket is a highly disparaged one on my campus. It seems that every year a shiny new version™ is released and the students must buy the new 40 dollar clacker. Perhaps the manufacturers know that the migration of this phenomenon to smartphones is inevitable and are cashing in while they can.
posted by 221bbs at 5:05 PM on March 31, 2012


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