[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

I really hate these things. It's yet another way to rip off students -- first we get gouged with steep tuition, then we pay for textbooks, and now we have to buy game show remotes. Yay.

I have yet to figure out how this does anything except make money for some clever people who have the skills to dupe educators into thinking these are useful.

The school I'm attending this summer, the University of Pittsburgh, uses devices manufactured by eInstruction. What the article doesn't mention is that it runs $15/semester to use these things PLUS you have to buy your own device for $8. I hate the idea of recurring fees -- this means that if I were unfortunate enought to have to use these every semester, it would run me $120.

What does that $15 buy me? It allows the inept instructor in my biology class to forego having to manually take attendance. Instead, once per class, we retrieve the remote control, answer some trival question that anyone who was awake in the lecture would know, and then return the remote control to our bags. How anyone could think this is better than manually taking attendance or a show of hands is unclear to me.

Look, college students aren't exactly wealthy. I know some who have to work a job or two to support themselves AND who are paying their own tuition. $15 is another 3-4 hrs of work for these people who can't afford to work more.

To require students to purchase (rent, reallty) these useless things as a course requirement, penalising their grades if they can't afford it is an awful idea. I'm shocked the article didn't mention it. Oh wait, that makes sense: all computers in education are good.

And yes, I know this is a website about shiny things with buttons. I like shiny things with buttons, as long as they're useful and I'm not forced to buy them. I hate being take advantage of since I'm in captive audience by being a student.

One more caveat: I understand that there might be some really huge lecture classes in which these could be useful -- none come to mind, but I'm willing to allow for some. Unfortunately, most educators will use these just because they can and because the students have to pick up their costs, not because they're really serving a useful purpose. And no one can honestly defend nailing students with yet another service fee every semester. That's just obviously greedy.