- Well, it turns out that this is what they use.
It's an RFID-based polling system
that has become increasingly popular at universities
due to the ease of conducting attendance
for even large classes with hundreds of students.
Every student in the course will be assigned one of these,
a remote with a unique identifier
linked to their student account.
Then, throughout the lecture,
instructors will ask multiple choice questions
and have students respond
by pressing the corresponding button on their remote.
The remote will then broadcast their answer,
along with their student ID, back to the base station
so that after class,
instructors can generate a list of students in attendance,
along with the answer they chose.
So, it actually serves a dual purpose,
both enforcing attendance
by requiring students to actually show up with their remote,
but also serving as a small quiz each lecture
to make sure students are paying attention.