Abstract:

The inspiration for a game-based audience-response system (ARS) goes back to the gamified quiz app "Kahoot!" which is broadly used at US primary schools. With "arsnova.click", we specifically address teachers who teach STEM courses (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) at secondary schools and universities. As a computer science faculty situated in the EU, we developed the quiz app with a focus on data privacy and anonymity: All quiz data is exclusively stored in the storage of the teacher's browser. This technology approach to guarantee data privacy is highly innovative for classroom teaching tools.

The audience response system arsnova.click can be used without prior registration. The web app (web address = app name) is open source software, internationalized in German, English, Spanish, French, and Italian. The German University of Applied Sciences, THM, offers the quiz app as software as a service (SaaS). However, it can be hosted on a web server by any educational institution. arsnova.click is a mobile-first HTML5 app, therefore no prior installation is necessary. It can be launched in any modern browser on any bring-your-own device (BYOD). Both, teachers and students, use the app on the same web page.

In contrast to Kahoot!, arsnova.click offers several types of questions. Besides multiple choice questions and surveys, there are one-click formats for numerical estimation and short answer questions. Up to 26 choices are possible, as long as the alphabet goes. Emoji, pictures, videos from YouTube or Vimeo, and TeX formulas can be embedded in both question stem and answer choices. In addition, text can be formatted and the syntax of program code highlighted. These features make the quiz app especially appropriate for STEM courses with a focus on computer science. Contrary to most other audience response systems, the text of the quiz is displayed in the student's browser, so that large distances in a lecture classroom to the slide projection has no impact on the correct understanding of a question and its answer choices.

On voting, students can feed back the degree of confidence for the correct answer ranging from "guessing" (0%) to "very sure" (100%). The average value of confidence is displayed in the voting statistics. The educational concept of the app is its use in the in-class stage of the Inverted-Classroom teaching method. It allows for formative assessment at the beginning of a lesson to check students' preparation and understanding of prior homework. Furthermore, used at the end of a lesson for assessing understanding of the information that has just been presented, it will keep engagement, motivation, and attention high, especially if bonus points are given to the top scorers.

To boost acceptance and participation, we designed arsnova.click with several gamification elements: There is a virtual quiz lobby, where the nicknames of the in-coming players are highlighted and everyone is waiting for the quiz competition to start. Selectable background music in the lobby and during voting, real-time display of the in-coming votes with their average confidence level, and huge counting fingers on the projection for the last five seconds of the countdown, ending with a Chinese gong, make for a motivating learning experience.

Keywords:

Audience response system, quiz app, BYOD, gamification, Kahoot!, arsnova.click, STEM, data privacy.