ETH Lecture Communicator 1.0

ETH Lecture Communicator is a tool to improve the interaction in the classroom between instructor and students. The system is based on a network infrastructure (e.g., a Wireless LAN) and portable computers brought to class.

The tool enables the instructor to create and carry out in-class online-assessments and facilitates organized instant communication for big classes.

Online-assessments can be constructed from questions of various types (e.g., multiple choice quizzes, item rating, item matching, lickert-scale, free text). The student answers are processed automatically whenever possible and a result summary is made available to the instructor.

Students can ask content-related questions. Fellow students have then the possibility rate such questions (i.e., to indicate if they are also interested in the question or not). The instructor sees the student questions in order of priority and can first answer those that interest a high number of students.

The tool is intended to improve the overall quality of a lecture by providing continuous feedback to the instructor about the students' understanding of the material. It also motivates the students for more interactivity and thus fosters active learning.