iClickers: Before Class

1. Download the iClicker Cloud desktop software for Windows and Mac.
2. Extract the downloaded .zip folder to a safe location on your computer (Desktop, Documents, etc.) – ensure that the “Required Files” and “iClicker Cloud.exe” files stay in the same folder.
3. Click on “iClicker Cloud” to launch the software.

Create an account or log in with an existing iCloud account (you may have created one in the past if you’ve used certain features with iClicker Classic). We recommend you use your @ucsd.edu email address.

If you’re creating an account for the first time it will prompt you to select your institution. Use the search bar to find “University of California San Diego”.

Create a course with a name and enough details to make it easy for your students to identify in the iClicker student app. You will want to create an iClicker course for each of the Canvas course sites you’ll be using iClicker with. When creating an official course, enter in as much information as you can so that your students can easily find and enroll in it.

You may also want to create a practice course to experiment with as you get to know iClicker Cloud.

Before using iClicker with your students, you can customize your course, including which devices you want to allow for participation, how you want to score polls and quizzes, how you want to use Attendance, and much more.

The “Devices” tab will allow you to select how you want your students to participate. You can also set your base station frequency here – if you’re using physical remotes in the classroom.

The “Attendance” tab will allow you to enable to disable (enabled by default) the attendance feature, which tracks attendance during your session.

The “Polling” tab will allow you to adjust the points that students get for participation, performance, or both – similar to the “Scoring” tab in iClicker Classic.

Under the “Integrations” tab you can connect your iClicker course to your Canvas course. Click on “Set Up Integration” to complete this process. Use the “UCSD Canvas” platform when it prompts you to select one. After you’ve authorized the connection between Canvas and iClicker it will show you a list of all of the Canvas course sites that you are either an instructor in (past or present) or a TA (past or present). Select the appropriate course from the list to complete the integration for this specific iClicker course. Then select all of the sections listed. Note, in Canvas there is always a generic course section usually named after the title of the course. This section is for non-students, i.e. instructors, TAs, and observers. Your actual enrolled students will be in the specific section(s) of your course, A00, A01, etc.

Lastly, it will prompt you to sync your roster to Canvas. Like iClicker Classic, you will need to go in here to resync your roster any time there are changes to your Canvas roster.

Once done, be sure to click “Save” at the top right of the page to save all your changes.

With iClicker, you can start engaging students right away. Simply make sure to include slides with questions in your existing presentation slides. If you're using Polling in synchronous class sessions, the software automatically snaps an image of the content that is on your screen at the moment you start each poll and sends that screenshot as a question to students’ devices.

If you're using Assignments synchronously or asynchronously, you will upload your questions and can indicate correct answers via the iClicker Cloud instructor website. Students complete Assignments on their own schedule in the iClicker student app.

If you're using iClicker synchronously, we definitely recommend practicing a bit before going live with your students. Once you’ve set up your course and downloaded the iClicker Cloud software, log in, start a class session, and try it out with your own presentation slides. You can even answer your own Polling questions in the student app! The following video shows both the instructor and student perspectives.