Upcoming UK Conference on Classroom Response Systems

A group of academic professionals in the UK have recently started a Ning community called Engaging Students Through In-Class Technology (ESTICT).  Much of the focus of the group is currently on the use of classroom response systems (“clickers”) which are often called Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) in the UK.  There are several interesting discussions happening in the group’s forum, including ones on writing clicker questions and research on the use of mobile phones as part of classroom response systems.

Even more exciting is that the group is hosting is second annual conference, ESTICT@Edinburgh, on April 29, 2010.  (I guess I should write 29 April 2010…)  Jim Boyle of the University of Strathclyde (whom you may recognize as “Boyle” from  Nicol & Boyle, 2003) is giving the keynote talk, and a series of “lightning round” talks will explore the use of Twitter and cell phones as part of classroom response systems, among other topics.

I can’t make it to Edinburgh this month unfortunately (in part because Edinburgh is one of my favorite cities), but if you’re in the area, this sounds like a great conference.  And if anyone attending would like to report here about it or tweet during the conference, let me know!

Image: “Edinburgh (#368)” by Flickr user Christopher Chan / Creative Commons licensed