Why Not Use Free! Mobile Resources

One the reasons I became involved with mobile teaching and learning was because of the pervasiveness of mobile devices (namely the cell phone) with my students. I would see them text messaging before, during (to my dismay) and after my class. As soon as they had a free minute, they were checking for text messages. So as teachers, how do we use this to our advantage? After all, a cell phone is just a handheld computer with wireless connectivity….

The Service

Textmarks.com is a web site that provides (free and for a fee) SMS gateway services. This is a fancy name for a service that provides the ability for you to broadcast text message alerts or provide a send and query function via a cell phone. An alert is a text message that goes to all of the cell phones subscribed to your Textmarks.com keyword. A send and query task allows someone to send a message to a keyword and have a response returned. Maybe a message is sent to the MyLibrary keyword and a book title and the send and query keyword would return the books available (like a database lookup up except with text messages instead). Testmarks.com also provides a for fee service which goes far beyond alerts and send to query text messages. The most important thing for us is that they have a free service that lets you try their services out.

The Experiment

I have a class on online Visual Basic students who I "see" only via BlackBoard and the Internet. One of the biggest challenges in retaining students in an online class is not the computer or the material covered but instead procrastination. Putting off today turns into tomorrow and then a week passes. The first test arrives and the student panics and drops the class. I try to keep my students engaged with emails and the Bb Announcements page but I could still use some more help. In comes Textmarks.com and the experiment…. I have registered a keyword with Textmarks.com and have told my students to subscribe to my keyword if they would like text message alert announcement (the same announcement I would put on Bb). Now time will tell but I think it might work. Textmarks.com has an easy to use management interface and you can look at the phones which have subscribed to the alert.

Will it work on you also….

I have also set up a keyword for you to try. If you send a text message to 41411 (cell phone message charges will apply) and use the keyword mobileDot, you will receive info on my webpage if reply to my message with a "y", you will automatically be added to my alert list. Easy as one, two, three