I teach an undergraduate pre-service teaching course. Often, I have the urge to share last minute
reminders or interesting articles, but e-mail seems too formal and students do
not always read messages in our LMS. I
have tried different Web 2.0 communication tools to see what best works for my
students and me. Below are three of the
tools I have used, a brief synopsis of what each tool does and how I have used
each in my classroom.
Remind101: This tool
is a way to text message students without ever swapping phone number with your
students. At the beginning of the
semester, I created a class group using the website. Students could “join” the class by texting a
specific code message to a specific phone number, both generated by Remind101. Then, on the web, I could see the students
who had signed up for this service, and I could “text” the class through the
web-based site. Students see a text
message from a Remind101 generated number, but the body of the message includes
my name so they know it is from me (see image below for an example of what
students will receive in their text message).
The only downside is students cannot reply back to the text message;
Remind101 is a one-way street!
A unique feature of Remind101 is the scheduled text messages. You
can create messages and schedule their release for a certain date and
time. That way, you can create reminders
for assignments ahead of time, and then Remind101 will release them for
you.
Here’s a great
video tutorial if you are thinking about using this tool!
Twitter: I use Twitter in my class as both a
communication tool and a learning tool. Twitter
is a micro-blogging tool that provides space for users to summarize content
into 140 characters or less. Users can "follow" other users in
order to have content created by the followed user pushed to the
follower. There is also a Twitter strategy called
"hashtags." These hashtags help to label the topics of a
tweet. A Twitter user may search for hashtags and find new users to
follow as well as interesting notes on a particular topic. I generally do
not follow the students in my class on Twitter, but I ask them to use the
#it3210 hashtag if they tweet about something pertinent to the course and/or
learning technologies. When I tweet
something with the #it3210 hashtag, I am guessing that not all of the students
will see the post immediately because my message isn’t pushed directly to the
students like in GroupMe or Remind101, so I only post time neutral information when
I use Twitter for my class. Last week,
as our first Twitter assignment this semester, after learning about ABCD
objectives, students tweeted an example of an objective they created (see below
for some of our attempts!).
GroupMe: This tool is app
based, web based, and SMS based. GroupMe
is a messaging tool that anyone in the group can use to communicate with the
rest of its members at once. Like a
group text, a student can respond back to the group by replying to the initial
post. One of the downsides of GroupMe is
that the group creator needs access to the phone numbers of potential members. I have shared this tool as an option for
student communication for group assignments.
All three of these tools can be helpful for communication in
your classroom. Try them out and let
everyone know in the comment section what you think!
|
Tool
|
Format
|
Pros
|
Cons
|
|
Remind 101
|
Web-based for the instructor, SMS for the students
|
Pushed text message, Can schedule text messages, Teacher
does not have to see student phone numbers
|
Students cannot respond back to instructor or message each
other
|
|
Twitter
|
Web and App
|
Unobtrusive, Students do not need a phone
|
Students may not always see messages immediately
|
|
GroupMe
|
Web, App, and SMS
|
All members in a group have equal messaging rights,
Students do not need a phone
|
Phone numbers are public to the group
|
Marissa (Missy) Ball graduated from the University of Georgia with an undergraduate degree in Telecommunication Arts and Mercer University with a Masters of Arts in Teaching. She is currently a full time PhD student in Instructional Technology. She taught for five years in the classroom: high school special education science, middle school language arts, and fourth grade general studies. At Georgia State, she teaches undergraduate preservice teachers at Georgia State University as an instructor of record for IT3210: Teaching, Learning, and Integrating Technology. Follow Missy's blog at http://missyball.weebly.com/blog.html
