Home+and+School+Texting

Karen Kelly

StudyBoost is a great tool for teachers and students. Teachers can create an account which will allow them to create reviews so that students can study material at home. StudyBoost has taken studying and fact review and moved it to a mobile platform which allows students to study on the go. Students create an account and can then select reviews to begin taking from their cell phone or home computer using a chat program such as Facebook Chat or AOL Instant Messenger. The teacher's questions are texted or sent via chat to the student and then the student responds. Teachers can set up preferences to allow the correct answer to be given if students miss a question or a 'try again' response. The photo you see to the left is a sample of a review of keyboard shortcuts that I made for my students. Students seem to enjoy the novelty of studying using their phones which engaged them a bit more than the traditional methods I would typically use. Last semester, most of my students bombed the keyboard shortcut quiz the first time they took it because they never even bothered to study their study guide which they typed up in class. Using StudyBoost allowed students this semester to study anytime/anywhere as long as they had their cell phone or access to a computer. While not every student chose to use the resource, the ones who did clearly benefit from the review as could be seen by looking at their quiz scores.

**Pros**: Free, easy to use, students can use the program on a variety of platforms **Cons**: Students may get frustrated when answers are 'wrong' because they were misspelled, questions may not come as quickly as students would want when texting--there is a slight delay.

Another website students can use while doing homework is ChaCha. Students can text a question to ChaCha at 242-242 and sit back and wait for a response. **Pros**: Easy to use, apps are also available for iPhones and Androids, program can be accessed via the web as well for students who do not have a cell phone**Cons**: ChaCha does not support all cell phone service providers so some students may not be able to use the texting feature



Parents often appreciate good communication from teachers. When I taught 6th grade, my students' parents relied heavily on my classroom website and their students' planners in keeping up to speed on what was going on in class. While both of those communication tools were effective when used, cell phones have made communicating with students and parents even easier. When I would put announcements on my classroom web page, I had to rely on parents actually getting on the Internet and visiting my page. Because so many parents are connected to their phones, text messages can be sent by the teacher at any time and almost guaranteed to be viewed. Teachers no longer have to wonder whether or not that note they sent home with a student actually made it home or if a parent is logging on to check the class web page. Texting services such as ClassPager, Celly and Broadtexter allow teachers to set up accounts that allow parents to subscribe to text messaging updates. The nice part about these services is that student and teacher phone numbers are never actually shared. For example, I set up a ClassPager account and a random phone number was assigned to my account. Students then text in a code to that number and are then asked if they want to join the group. Students enter their names, but their phone numbers are never given to me as the teacher. I can send group texts and announcements without worrying about my own cell phone number being compromised. There are so many texting services out there, but here are three that are a good place to start.

ClassPager **Pros**: Free for up to a class of 25, easy to use, user anonymity, teachers can text polls and ClassPager will collect and aggregate the data for you, members cannot text the group. [|ClassPager] **Cons**: Have to upgrade to a paid service if you have more than 25 students, must log on to send a text message--cannot schedule messages in advance to be sent at a later time

Celly **Pros**: Free for an unlimited number of users, easy to use,user anonymity, texts can be scheduled in advance, polling is available, posts are filtered through Celly's monitoring to try and cut down on irrelevant posts, cyber-bullying, etc... [|Celly] **Cons**:

Broadtexter **Pros**: Free for an unlimited number of users, user anonymity, texts can be scheduled in advance, group webpage is also created where members can view group texts and uploads, group page can be embedded into class web pages or blogs [|Broadtexter] **Cons**:

Texting in the Classroom
==Texting to Connect with Students at Home ==

Preparing your Classroom for Cell Phone
===Multi-Media Projects ===