[YL] Text-messaging in education?

[KOFI ANINAKWA]

This is perfect , I have been thinking about it for sometime now for my people in africa, especially almost the youth in the urban area have cell phone and have been wondering if they will put them to good use by contacting teachers and friends for home work assistance 24/7 etc...............................recording lectures in class  or group debates...........more suggestions can be obtained from others
 
 
thanks
kofi frimpong-aninakwa
founder & president
african-american community computer 
& resources academy (accra) inc
 
 
 

HCHUNG <hchung at edc.org> wrote:

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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