A Low-cost Classroom Response System

Classroom Response Systems (CRS), also known as "clickers", facilitate peer instruction (which leads to improved student learning) and allow instructors to evaluate responses of all students to questions in near real-time. Most proposed CRS are unsuitable for large-scale adoption in developing countries either because they require expensive supporting infrastructure (e.g., Wi-Fi), or because they only support certain question types (e.g., Multiple Choice Questions). In this paper, we describe a system that addresses these two challenges simultaneously. We assume that the instructor and every student has their own low-cost Android smartphone with Bluetooth connectivity. Further, if the instructor's device can be connected to a digital projector and student devices have cameras, our system can deliver questions to students in a randomized order. This feature can be useful for conducting in-class quizzes.