Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Davila et al. (
2006
) classified innovations as incremental, semi-radical, and
radical. One possible incremental innovation of PRS is freedom from its current
applications using specialized equipment and fixed physical locations. PRS is an
ideal candidate for transformation into a more widely used voting service. Instead
of specialized clickers, personal mobile devices, such as cell phones, personal
digital assistants (PDAs), pads, or notebook computers, of the audience/voters are
used. This transformation potentially opens up the service to all synchronous or
asynchronous group activities with voting needs.
With the integration of existing technologies, new IT-enabled services may be
quickly created to meet the criteria of this incremental innovation. The remaining
sections include a brief literature review on PRS, followed by the conceptual
description of the proposed cloud voting system. Two research prototype
applications are then introduced as proof of concept. Finally, a brief discussion of
the new business service model by this improved PRS technology is discussed with
a concise conclusion.
9.2 Literature Review
Before the application of PRS in education, this technology was first used in the
military for filmed instruction materials in the 1960s, as investigated by Judson and
Sawada (
2002
), who commented that even by today's technology standards, the
early system was fairly sophisticated for educational use. For example, the Litton
Student Response System reported in Boardman (
1968
) allowed five answers from
A to E and provided feedback for correct response through vibrating buttons.
The use of PRS in class instruction has evolved from in-class reading quizzes to
pre-class response and reading (Crouch and Mazura
2001
) to increase the problem-
solving skills of students (Levesque
2011
) through peer discussion (Smith et al.
2009
) or peer instruction (Crouch and Mazura
2001
). As an ideal complement to
peer instruction, just-in-time teaching is also used to help structure students'
reading before class and to provide feedback for the instructor to tailor peer
discussion questions to target student difficulties (Mazur and Watkins
2010
).
Meanwhile, the main target of large-class application has also been extended to
small-class application (Smith et al.
2011
) to enable the students to do the required
reading before class, share their thoughts, and learn from their peers, as well as for
the instructors to engage all students in the class.
The components of PRS have also evolved since then. First, PRS has changed
from a specialized system to a web-based system (Carlson
2001
), which is more
accessible to the students and more manageable to the teachers. Meanwhile, the
remote control has been improved from infrared-based to a better and more stable
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-based alternative, which has been adopted
