Automating Student Photo Rosters using a PDA
Abstract: Teaching large courses in a university setting has its own unique set of problems. Even though learning students’ names early has been shown to help establish a positive relationship between teacher and student, instructors of large courses may not have the means to learn students’ names. Many techniques and tricks exist for helping to memorize names, but perhaps the most effective is being able to associate a student name with a face. A document containing student photos and names such as this is often referred to as a "student photo roster". In this paper, we will describe and demonstrate the system we use at the beginning of each semester to automate the task of generating student photo rosters. Our system consists of a PDA with an attached digital camera along with custom software we have developed. Because Pocket Photo Roster works so well, we have used it in large and small courses.