System components

• Clicker:   This is the response pad used by students to record their answers to question slides.  The Turning Point Clickers are standard on the UMCP campus.  One response device (or "clicker") can be used in all classes which use Turning Point.
• Receiver:  One must be installed on the presentation computer to record answers. 
• Software: Installed on faculty computer to create presentation and classroom computer to run the presentation and collect data.  Turning Point integrates with and looks like a Powerpoint slideshow. 
  

Turning Point Software

Click here to download Turning Point 2008

•  NOTE: Before you install TP - Be sure you uninstall any previous versions you may have. 
• If you wish the Helpdesk to install this for you, contact helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu

More installation instructions with screenshots can be found at http://clickers.umd.edu/

Training and other help

In addition to campus specific information at http://clickers.umd.edu,  the Turning Point website has some great tutorials along with best practice tips, quick guides, and regularly scheduled online training sessions.

Full TP Manual for Turning Point with Powerpoint 2003

Full TP Manual for Turning Point with Powerpoint 2007

Handouts you can print out

Student help

For Student information on clickers, go to http://www.clickers.umd.edu and click the student tab.  Information and links there include:

• Buy a keypad
• Register your keypad
• Setting the channel on your keypad
• Lost/stolen keypad
• Nonfunctioning keypad

Hardware available to borrow

Smith School Faculty may borrow response pads ("clickers") for their Graduate Students on a first come-first served basis.   Undergraduates must purchase a response pad from the campus bookstore. 

Be sure to request your set using the form at this link as soon as possible.  Our current equipment pool is large enough for 7 classes of 60 students.  You will be notified by return mail if enough are available for your class. 

• The loaned devices are to be collected at the end of the semester and must be tracked by the faculty who hand them out.
• An agreement should be signed by the students when it is handed out, explaining that grades will be withheld until the device is returned.
• If a clicker is broken or lost, the student is required to purchase a replacement from the campus bookstore before the end of the semester.

Receivers are installed in every classroom in Van Munching Hall, thanks to a campus initiative to adopt the Turning Point system as a campus classroom standard. In addition, The Office of Smith IT makes receivers available to faculty teaching off-site.

SECURITY NOTE: If you bring a receiver to class, be sure not leave it unattended in any public space. There is, unfortunately, a history of them being mistaken for flash drives and stolen when left unattended in classrooms.

If there are no more loaner clickers available

Students will need to purchase a new Turning Point XR Response Pad from the bookstore for $53. One response pad may be used in all the classes using Turning Point technology, anywhere across campus. It may be sold back to the bookstore at the end of the semester.

What differs from the rest of UMCP?

Nothing differs from the process being used by the campus Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) except for the pool of loaner hardware that Smith IT maintains.  CTE has developed instruction support and has made it available from http://clickers.umd.edu.