The Development of .

In 1997, the University of Illinois Physics Department embarked on a reform of its introductory classes based on physics education research. Modeling lectures after Harvard’s successful Peer Instruction, instructors posed conceptual questions to students, who discussed possible solutions among themselves before answering individually. Class time then focused on issues raised by the students’ responses. Initially, students answered with flashcards– convenient, but far from anonymous and limited in terms of data collection.

Tim Stelzer, Mats Selen, Gary Gladding, and Benny Brown experimented with other ways of recording students' votes, including a sophisticated wired “Class Talk” solution and an infrared-based system. The many problems they encountered using these technologies inspired the Illinois team to create —a breakthrough system that avoids the pitfalls of previous systems by offering:

• Plug-and-play installation
• No interference with campus wireless
  networks.
• Extraordinary speed—votes accepted and   confirmed in under a second
• A flexible registration process
• 100% reliability--no freezes or “dropped votes”
• 100% compatibility with the software
  instructors use anyway (Word, PowerPoint,
  etc.)—no need for instructors to recreate
  questions or learn a new program

US Acquires .

The Macmillan US acquisition in 2005 allowed to invest significant resources into hardware and software development, creating the superior classroom solution we offer today. Just as important, ’s experienced management team (with a combined 70 years in college publishing) brought its longtime focus on customer service to the project, helping us establish first class technical and sales support to support adopting instructors.

Macmillan has been publishing outstanding educational products for more than five decades. Its publishing family includes: Farrar Straus and Giroux, Henry Holt & Company, Palgrave Macmillan, Picador, Roaring Brook Press, St. Martin's Press, Tor Books, Scientific American, Nature, and Bedford Freeman & Worth Publishing Group. is distributed by the MPS warehouse in Gordonsville, Virginia (the same warehouse that distributes all of Macmillan’s U.S. publications), allowing customers to enjoy very generous returns and ordering policies.

takes a “non-exclusive” approach to working with textbook publishers, currently partnering with Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, Bedford, Freeman, and Worth, Wiley, Elsevier, Houghton Mifflin, Norton, and Lippincott/Williams and Wilkins Publishers. Instructors are free to choose the textbook and clickers they want and a variety of special packages and discounts are available.

Today

In just two years, has become one of the most widely used response systems in higher education, adopted at more than 550 institutions to date. It is the institutional standard at, among other schools, University of Colorado-Boulder, Brigham Young University, Boston College, Clemson University, Colorado State University, Cornell University, University of Guelph, University of California-Irvine, University of Louisville, and University of Toronto.

As the evolution of progresses, every decision behind it continues to be based on what works in the classroom. Product development is driven by pedagogical research, the experiences of our inventors, and significant input from faculty users and reviewers. The result: the fastest, easiest-to-use, most reliable classroom response system available.

To sign up for an online demonstration, visit https://iclicker.webex.com or email us at sales@iclicker.com. For information on the Macmillan US companies, visit us at us.macmillan.com.