Thursday, June 7, 2007

E-Mail Messaging (e-mail to cell phones)

I've become a fan of e-mail messaging. It is the only way to reach and get a response from high school or college kids, given they prefer text messaging and instant messages over e-mail.

Academic librarians have started to experiment with instant messages for reference service, but it has it other uses. It might be fun to experiment some more -- ask for student AND TEACHER cell phone numbers when they check out a book or come to a meeting or class in the library. Follow up with a short and sweet message to their cells at 10digitcell@txt.att.com.

Download the Txt2Connect tutorial (for parents and librarians, too!) What could some of your messages look like?
(From LIBRARY@school.org) Check it out. New books arrived.
(From LIBRARY@school.org) Check it out. Book Club meets today.
(From LIBRARY@school.org) Check it out. Guest author in town.
(From LIBRARY@school.org) Check it out. Book overdue.
(From LIBRARY@school.org) Check it out. Read. Succeed.
(From LIBRARY@school.org) Check it out. Eat. Sleep. Read. Repeat.

See also: Cell Phone Revolution on Campus - the Chronicle of Higher Education carried an Report released by New America Media, a national collaboration of ethnic news organizations. The report reveals data about 600 16- to 22-year-olds and how they feel about marriage, their future, and other pressing issues in their lives. Not surprisingly, school is the main cause of stress in 33% of the respondents' lives. Also, the largest proportion (27%) said music and fashion are the most important characteristics that identify their identity. Survey done entirely by cell phone.

1 comment:

librarymum said...

Hi!
I'm posting a link to this post on email messaging to the new page I created on the SLL2.0 wiki for Cell phones in education. I hope you don't mind and please feel free to delete it from the wiki if you don't want it there.