[YL] Text-messaging in education?

[HCHUNG]

Dear YouthLearn members-

I am contacting all of you with my personal question for the first time.

I was wondering how many kids in America use cell phones as an ICT tool,
and also curious if there is an example of any good use of using mobile
phones in class. In fact, my recent trip to my home Korea reminded me
that how text-messaging permeates lives of Korean youth. In East Asia,
text-messaging is more frequently used than calling among the young. The
typing speed with phones is unbelievable, especially that of young kids.
The disruption by its use in class has been always an issue - so some
schools or teachers periodically censor kids' back packs (-_-;) to ban
the use of them. But, it will become harder and harder to stop this
growing number of kids who possess cell phones. Maybe we will have less
control of banning covert phone activities in class. Do Americans kids
text-message while they're in class? If yes, I'd like to step back and
contemplate why kids love doing it, and would be interested in figuring
out if there is at all a way to engage students in class by using the
good functionality of SMS feature on cell phones. Some of my friends who
are teachers in Korea mainly use cell phones to stay connected with
their students during school vacation. My question would be about "in
class" use. Someone on my team said that there could be a possible use
of SMS when it is associated with Palm-based projects. Any ideas?

Maybe, another question would be if there is any governmental or
corporate effort to provide real-time educational services for mobile
phone users (teachers and students) who can access to the Internet
through their devices. It's obvious that nowadays people can easily
access to any kind of information through their mobile phones. I wonder
how useful it would be if our kids or teachers can receive any
information or government level of services through mobile phones during
class.

Well, relatively speaking, this technology is not new, but I never
thought about using it for education before. 
What do you think?

Sincerely,
 
Haejung Chung
Research Assistant, The YouthLearn Initiative
Education Development Center, Inc.
55 Chapel St, Newton MA 02458
617-618-2730
YouthLearn: http://www.youthlearn.org
EDC: http://www.edc.org

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