Hotseat will be decommissioned for instructional use after the fall 2024 semester

As the upcoming semester approaches, Purdue University is showcasing tools designed to assist instructors in enhancing classroom engagement, including iClicker Cloud, which is replacing Hotseat and offers seamless browser and app access for students at no extra cost.

“This is a great tool for two things, for checking who is or who is not present in class, and I do use it to check to see if they are following the lecture,” Yan Olek, professor of civil engineering, said about iClicker. “Secondly, for any instructor who is teaching a larger class and is concerned about students being engaged and paying attention, it’s a good interactive tool.”

Hotseat replacement timeline:

Summer 2024 and fall 2024 – Hotseat is still available for in-class usage.

Spring 2025 – Access to Hotseat is limited to instructors only for content retrieval.

Summer 2025 – Hotseat will be decommissioned and no longer available.

In addition to iClicker, Brightspace, Purdue’s learning management system, provides versatile functionalities that can be tailored for a variety of instructional needs, classroom engagement options among them.

Check out the Instructional Technology website for frequently asked questions and getting started guides. If you require assistance in navigating your options or tailoring solutions to your specific course needs, reach out to a consultant by attending a drop-in help session or emailing tlt@purdue.edu.

Here are some  common use cases along with corresponding classroom engagement tool options:

Attendance

iClicker has a geolocation option for taking attendance and polling questions. This feature allows instructors to check which students are within a set radius. Also, iClicker can be linked to your Brightspace courses, and the roster can be updated with your course enrollments.  Brightspace’s attendance feature can be found under Course Tools.

Pre-class check in/bellringer work

There are a variety of different polling question types in iClicker, such as multiple choice, target, numeric and short answer questions. These can all be graded in iClicker and synced to the Brightspace gradebook for easy grading.

Short answer/discussions

You can use iClicker to gather anonymous synchronous feedback in class by using the short answer question type (iClicker’s short answer question type also features a word cloud display that can showcase student responses). For asynchronous discussions, Brightspace discussion boards allow students to answer prompts and respond to each other in an organized manner.

Self-paced in-class quizzing

Quizzing in iClicker can be utilized to check students’ knowledge in synchronous classes. This feature is great with questions that need to be discussed to reach understanding and it allows for flexibility in asking impromptu questions. The Brightspace quizzes feature is best for setting up asynchronous quizzes with questions that have a strongly defined answer for students to check their learning.

Study Tools

In iClicker, students can auto generate study tools like flash cards and practice tests using the questions asked in class. This can be found in the student dashboards.