Darrell Ward is one of the co-founders a…
Darrell Ward is one of the co-founders and CEO of ALL in Learning. He is described as an educational technology pioneer, executive and entrepreneur.
ALL in Learning is a company that seeks to make assessment data of students more efficiently. Further, it appears that the original company of this team, eInstruction Corporation, started “the clicker revolution”. I don’t know about a ‘revolution’ as I have never seen these devices before, but the images I found of them show that they ] are class sets of simple response clickers with 1,2,3,4,5 or a,b,c,d,e buttons. ALL in is subdivided into ALL in Cloud, ALL in Response and ALL in Apps. The Cloud provides a platform that allows multiple teachers to access and share common assessments. The Response focuses on providing a number crunching numbers and providing reports to save teachers time in locating which students need help in which areas. The Apps offer two different apps that help teachers turn the iOS platform into a mobile teaching and assessment platform.
As mentioned, Ward was CEO of eInstruction Corporation from 1981-2009, and has recently written a book called “CLICK: an entrepreneur’s journey that changed the classroom forever”. He has a PhD from Texas A&M, a Masters degree from University of Iowa in Computer Science. He could be described as an inventor as he received patents in both 2005 and 2012. Ward’s leadership team all come from eInstruction Corporation, which shows that these guys have worked well together before, and shows that they had the foresight to shift focus of their ambition embracing new technologies to try and profit.
One thing I noticed is that neither Darrell Ward nor his team are traditional educators, per se. They seem more tech and business focused in their education and previous experience. Perhaps Ward saw that “clickers” were becoming a thing of the past, and has shifted his team and company to be more competitive in the modern world.
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avninder 8:47 am on September 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I have used clickers in corporate training and found them to be effective in increasing class participation and gaining feedback as an instructor. As with any learning technology the clicker can be extremely useful but also a hindrance in learning, if its use is not executed correctly.
I do not foresee the assessment data provided by ALL in Learning being used at my organization in the immediate future. However, it is good to know that this service is available. Thanks for the info.
Jenny Brown 9:04 am on September 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
We were looking for an option for gaining better student engagement in our large food safety classes (100-400 students) and we ended up using polleverywhere.com I think this is the sort of technology that is replacing clickers. Essentially it is the same idea except it uses “polls” and mobile devices. The poll comes up on the PowerPoint slide and then students text in their answers. You can also send in answers through the Internet and Twitter too. Grade reporting and other reports are available to teachers.
jenbarker 4:19 pm on September 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I briefly looked at this company too and when I read about the cost of the clickers it doesn’t surprise me that users are turning to polls. It makes me think of programs such as Socrative and GoSoapBox where students can use a computer, mobile device or any smartphone to key in their selections. I have never used a clicker and do not know if they allow for open ended answers but I know the other programs do.
Mike Rae 12:02 am on September 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yah when I saw the picture of the clickers I was kinda surprised at how dinosaurish they looked, that they were for sale, and how expensive they were. That being said, the clicker could definitely be seen as the great grandparent of the BYOD revolution that allows students to do things like polleverywhere.com. Maybe that’s why Ward consider’s himself an “educational technology pioneer”.
On a side note, in my school (BC offshore in China), there is a “no cell phones in class policy” to limit texting between friends mostly. Some teachers have been flirting with using student cell phones as cameras for scavenger hunts, polleverywhere.com, and things like that. Once word got back to administation, there was a slap on the wrist group email sent about breaking a school rule and teachers are not to be doing these activities…..this email was sent three days ago….ugh!
kstackhouse 10:01 am on September 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
We have a set of clickers at our school (I can’t remember the brand). I know that they math teachers use them more than the other departments. It does work well for quick checks on concepts and to do simple quizzes. I think now people are relying on twitter more to do the same thing. This is being done in university courses and even in church services I have seen the Twitter feed on the screen and people can ask the pastor questions.
Mike, I feel your pain. We have a no-BYOD rule in our district. It is frustrating because we were told to provide 21st C learning opportunities and at the same time told there would be no spending on technology…Students are coming to school with great resources available to them. I know there is are issues between those that have and those that don’t and security concerns. I think there must be a way to make it work.