Clicker Support. Is it possible to go beyond 60 concurrent users?

[Trevor Meister]

From what I can gather, the upper limit of senteo clickers that can be supported at one time is 60. I have opened other lines of inquiry as well, but so far info. seems to say one receiver per computer only, and the newest receivers with updated software etc. can support 60 clickers max. Someone I know is trying to set up a large scale demonstration with 200 participants and wants to be able to have audience participation. Will keep searching, but if anyone has heard of a way to make this possible, would love to know how.

[Obe Hostetter]

One work around that should work would be to have 4 different computers computers running the same Notebook file. You would only need to project one of the computers as long as you advance all the computers to the same page or use a title page and have 4 different receivers with different class names? This would then create 4 different results which would then need to be combined.

[Trevor Meister]

So have all 4 computers accessing same notebook 10 file on a small Local area network so the questions are the same and combine results before showing on the projected computer. Hmm... I have some time to play around with that notion and have also put in a call to the SMART HQ to see if they have any "back room hacks" they may have been working on. Will see how far I get. Thanks.

[Obe Hostetter]

I would probably copy the Notebook file and have 4 different versions of the file running at the same time. Notebook might crash or lose results if you used the same Notebook file. This way you would have 4 different computers with 4 different Notebook files and 4 different receivers getting the information. Name the Classes different so the Senteo clickers only work with one Notebook. Combine the results at the end.

This project sounds like quite an undertaking. Share the results here.

[Trevor Meister]

As I dig, it may turn out to not be that big a deal. I would imagine that adoption of student response systems in higher education would require more capacity and this problem may have already been dealt with; I haven't been looking for very long. It is still nice to have a community to go to with questions like this and when I do find out something I will post results.

[MJeans]

I know a teacher who quizzes all 80 of his students at one time . From what I understand you can plug 2 receivers in to 1 computer and double that amount. Have 1/2 of the room log in to one receiver (class) and 1/2 log in on the other. I would give it a try with a much smaller group before I tried 200 people.

[Trevor Meister]

I was wondering if you could do that. The documentation I found on SMART's site indicated that it was not possible to connect more than one receiver to a single computer, but that particular document was fairly dated. I have a message in to their support services to get an update on this. It seems likely that the 60 limit would have been an issue in higher education where class size for undergrad courses would typically be much greater than 60. It is good to know that there has been some success with multiple receivers; I will experiment with that for sure. Thanks!

[MJeans]

I actually got the advice to plug in two receivers into one computer from the Senteo Product Manager. I would assume he would know that would work. Again, I have not tried it personally, but know of a teacher who does it on a regular basis.