Comments on: New for back-to-school: 'Clickers'

Students returning to school this fall may have a new item on their list of supplies--a gadget that's making classrooms more interactive.
Photos: Clickers in the classroom

[TV James]

Oh, boo hoo.

"But such 'standardization,' in industry lingo, may go against the grain of professors, who tend to be very independent-minded, Ward said."

People are trying to be way too independent these days without understanding (or caring?) about the ramifications. Standards exist for a reason. To save money, avoid confusion, etc.

And a department complains later when we bill them for IT support because they insisted on implementing something other than the standard and we have to go learn how to support it. (That is not to say that if someone wants to prove to us why the standard doesn't meet the needs of their division, that we won't allow them to switch and support them, but if it's just a matter of personal taste, then it's your own problem.)

If you're going to start establishing IT guidelines (doing their job for them) then maybe the IT guys should come teach your classes. (What? They're not qualified and don't have the education necessary? But you're fully trained in the world of IT because you don't get lost when you go to Best Buy?)

It just amazes me that the same people who will accept the available choices for health plans from their employer without complaining raise the biggest stink if their exact brand of technology or software isn't the standard at their company and think they know best.

[Byronic]

IT establishing 'standards'

In my experience, the users often tend to know more about the
technology than the IT staff. Usually the IT staff is busy
pushing their own favorite tech and is upset that they should
have to know more than one technology. The ironic thing is
that the rest of us have to know at least 2 or 3 ways of doing the
same thing, but you, whose job it is to support this, think you
know best and are upset that the rest of us don't agree with you.
So you decline 'support' (e.g. work against your client's wishes)
when it is in fact your job to SUPPORT technolgy and not
DICTATE it.

If you don't like supporting a variety of technologies (let's say
you only want to use MS tech because it's just easier for you and
you are in your 'comfort zone') then maybe you need to find
something else to do.

[jvyduna]

Cell Phone ARS

This exists today - people can use their cell phones to vote in PowerPoint using Poll Everywhere, and it's free for low volume voting. See http://www.polleverywhere.com