Technology Colleagues,

Here's a list of 12 ideas so far for how to use the free online  
resource I mentioned here on October 15th.  To learn the Web page for  
this resource, email me (not the list) your idea(s) for how you would  
use it.

1) Use the telephone-to text message feature to:
	a) Remind students of writing center appointments
	b) Do an all points to a class talking about a glitch in a web-based  
assignment.

2) Before an orientation send new students a message as to where our  
classroom is located, what paperwork to bring and so on.

3) Send messages to students who have been absent all week to contact  
me and let me know if they will be back to class next week. Encourage  
them to come back and let them know they could call me to let me know  
about any problems they were having.

4) Communicate with the teachers I work with as a professional  
developer and

5) Demonstrate the service to these teachers, so they could then use  
it with their students.

6) Send a message in the evening announcing what topics we'll be  
covering in class the next day.

7) Give an assignment.  Those who do it would receive a prize or  
incentive.  Possible assignments might include finding someone close  
to them and interacting with them using spoken English.  They would  
have to record the response and some details about the interaction  
(with whom, when, response, etc.) to get credit.  The message would  
be something related to a grammar point or something else we've  
studied in class. For example, if we've been working on comparatives,  
the assignment might be "Talk to the first person you see in  
English.  Introduce yourself and ask them if you can ask them a  
question as part of your homework for your English class.  Your  
question for today is "Do you prefer visiting Disneyland or Sea World  
and why?"

8) Offer a mini-vocabulary lesson like a "word of the day" message,  
and then a challenge to call     back and use the word in a sentence  
as part of their conversation with me.

9) Listening tasks.  Send a message with several instructions related  
to a task.  Those who successfully complete the task get a prize.   
"Call this 800 number United Airlines and use the automated system  
for flight arrivals to find the expected time of arrival of flight 1450"

10) I can envision our teachers using this service to remind students  
of homework assignments, tests, field trips, etc.

11) I can also envision it being used by the students on class  
projects in order to collaborate with each other.  For example, our  
high school foundations kids (pre-GED) recently went on a field trip  
to our ocean center and each was assigned a fish species to study.   
If we had this service, each student could send a phone message to  
the other students highlighting 5 features of their species, then the  
other students could save each message and record them in their notes  
when they got back to class.  This could all be done at the ocean  
center when the students are scattered across the site studying their  
fish.

12) I am interested in helping promote a sense of community and  
support systems for and amongst the students I work with.  The  
service you mention in your post might be an effective venue to  
facilitate this, especially as they could warm up to interacting with  
others if and when they choose to do so. It doesn't entail the  
pressure and often inappropriateness of forced teamwork and  
collaborative learning.

Thanks to:  Bonnie Odorne, Tina Luffman, Jennifer Davis, Wendy  
Quinones, Ku’ulei Reeser, Michael Gyori, and Barry Bakin for these  
suggestions.

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net

-----

On Oct 15, 2007, I wrote:

Suppose there were a free service that enabled you -- from a cell  
phone or a land line -- to send up to a 30-second voice message to  
yourself, or to anyone you had listed in an address book that you had  
created for this purpose.  Suppose your students could send messages  
this way, too, from their phones. Suppose when you called the toll- 
free number (U.S. and Canada only) it said "Hi (your name), who do  
you want to send a message to? " Suppose you then said the person's  
name (or "me" for sending yourself reminders). Then, suppose you  
spoke your brief message. Then, in a few minutes, suppose the message  
were sent to an e-mail address (as a translated text message, with a  
"real voice" audio option) or as an SMS text message. Suppose, also,  
that you could set up a group of people, and whenever you wanted to,  
you could send them all one voice/text/email message. (Suppose this  
group were all the students in your class, or all the instructors at  
your program, who have either a land line or cell phone.)

Such a free service exists. (There may be more than one, but I only  
know of one.) If you would like to know what it is, here's the catch:  
you have to email me (djrosen at comcast.net) at least one idea of how  
you would use this with students. Then I will email you the URL for  
the free service.  I am not promoting this service particularly  
(although I do think it could be useful.) What I am trying to do is  
to use the collective intelligence, imagination and experience of  
subscribers on this list to collect ideas about how to use such a  
technology. I will compile whatever I get and send a summary back to  
this list.

If you want to know the Web address, send me -- not the Technology  
list -- your idea(s) about how to use this service with your basic  
literacy, ESOL, ABE, ASE, or college transition students, students --  
in a face-to-face or on-line setting.

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net