Welcome to the UMass Amherst Personal Response System (PRS™) support pages!

This website was designed and implemented to assist faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who are using PRS. Using the menus above and to the left you can find information about all things PRS, from information for prospective users (GETTING STARTED), to questions to help the most experienced users (INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES). This material is always changing so if you find a question that isn't answered, please contact us and we'll do our best to help.

NEWS:

May, 2008

New video documents PRS Best Practices Fellows project:

December, 2007

Our new Tutorial Movie, designed and narrated by Kevin Kohler, is now on line! Thanks to the University of Delaware for their example of a video tutorial..

November, 2007

On Tuesday November 13, the Center For Teaching, Center for Educational Software Development, and the Provost’s Office presented a workshop entitled Teaching with Clickers: Using the Personal Response Systems (clickers) and PRS Software. The event was well attended and included presentations by Nathalie Lavoie, Randy Phillis, Richard Rogers, and PRS Best Practice Fellows. Slides and handouts from the workshop are available:

Teaching with Clickers 2007 (pdf, 1MB)

Example of PRS Question by Nathalie Lavoie (pdf, 256KB)

Example of PRS Question Ray La Raja (pdf, 76KB)

PRS Checklist and Issues handout (pdf, 148KB)

PRS Best Practice Fellows list and objectives (pdf, 56KB)

October, 2007

UMass Amherst has standardized to RF clickers; IR systems are no longer supported.

If you have old IR PRS equipment, UMass Amherst along with Interwrite PRS is donating all our IR equipment to the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana as our Computer Science Department has a wonderful summer program there and we have hosted Daniel Obuobi, Head of Department of Computer Science & Information Tech at the University of Cape Coast for his sabbatical leave last year. For more information, contact Richard Rogers in the Provost's Office.

The website has been updated to support RF clickers exclusively. If you need information about IR systems, please go to the manufacture's site:

http://www.interwritelearning.com/support/prs/ir/

August, 2007

To new users:

• Download the Interwrite PRS software from

www.gtcocalcomp.com/rf_login.php

You will need to make a free account with GTCO, and it may take them 24 hours to activate your account, so make sure to do this before your class starts. If you’re having difficulty contact PRS Support at

prs-support@cs.umass.edu

• You may want to subscribe to the PRS mailing list:

www.umass.edu/prs/HMailingList.html

This list is mainly used as a means to update users about software updates and potential problems.
• Check out these video tutorials on how to use the PRS software

www.interwritelearning.com/support/videotutorialsPRSRF.html

• Make sure to test PRS in the room you will be using before classes start to make sure everything is working correctly. If you need help with this contact PRS Support at

prs-support@cs.umass.edu

• If you have questions or can’t find the information you’re looking for email

prs-support@cs.umass.edu

To old users:

• A new version of the software is available at

www.gtcocalcomp.com/rf_login.php

The most noticeable change is that you no longer get a message in power point when you try to move past a PRS slide without ending a question (in fact the whole end question mechanic is gone).

Archived News 2004 - 2006

*For more information about PRS and other InterWrite Products see GTCO Calcomp's website.*