Reach 99.8% of Students With The One Thing You're Not Doing ...

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Simon Sinek says in?Start with Why?that companies strongly connected to their purpose, or ?why,? adapt to consumer behaviors prompted by new technologies. Those disconnected from their ?why? do not adapt and suffer the consequences.??Their ability to compete against a new technology or see a new perspective becomes a daunting task,? he writes.

Sinek?s is a business book, but the message has implications for those in education.

The ?why? of education is preparing as many students as possible for professional success and lifelong learning. So, it makes sense that in 1801 as word spread that West Point instructor George Baron had affixed a large piece of black slate to the classroom wall, teachers all over the country started ordering slate. ?They knew their ?why? and understood the chalkboard would help them scale their purpose.

And for 200 years, it did.

Now in the age of the ed tech boom as companies race to ?disrupt? education, educators once again have the opportunity to scale their purpose with new technologies.

Not all technologies borne of the boom are perfect. But just as the black chalkboard eventually turned green because it was easier on the eyes, so too will today?s technologies evolve and improve as we use them.

The #1 Technology You Should Use, Not Avoid

Talk of purpose and scale might bring to mind the widely discussed and controversial MOOC, but this post is about something much smaller and simpler with the potential to connect you to 99.8% of your students: text messaging, also known as short message service (SMS).

Odds are, you do it every day. Your students certainly do.?And yet, SMS remains relatively untapped by educators as a tool for communicating with students.?Perhaps it has to do with headlines warning of texting and driving, texting wrecking kids? writing skills, teacher-student inappropriate textual relationships. But, it doesn?t have to be that way.?SMS is ready for a new storyline.

According to the stats, ?students text far more than they talk, check texts more than e-mail, and?sleep next to their phones.

?In the few years since instant messaging leaped from the computer to the cell phone, a new mobile lifestyle has evolved for college students,??Ball State Director of Institute for Mobile Media Research, Michael Hanley, reported in a 2010 study.

If this is how your students are communicating with everyone else on the planet, why isn?t it how they communicate with you?

Tips for a Smart SMS Communications Strategy

You strategy should be the result of research, inquiry and experimentation. I recommend posting a question in a LinkedIn group or sending a tweet to the #edchat, #edtech and #highered communities for ideas.

Once you decide how you will use SMS, it?ll be important to share with students what they can expect from your texts, as well as any guidelines you have to protect privacy and keep things professional.

A few examples of what you could do:

Send reminders.?Notices of tests, study sessions, office hours, class changes, and campus and community events are great reasons to send your students a quick text. Reminders like this have increased attendance at advising appointments at a Minnesota college.

Send corrections. If you need to change an assignment, test date, or one of the other dozens of things you tweak at the last minute, let them know.

Offer ?giveaways.? Borrow a page from the marketing playbook and surprise your students a few times a semester with the opportunity to earn extra credit or win a prize for answering a trivia question.

Make it voluntary. Strive for invitation not invasion.?Sinek?s mantra applies here: ?People don?t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.? As long as students think your texts are relevant and useful, they will see them as extensions of the classroom and they?ll want to receive them.

Choose the group SMS tool that works for you. Consider the following:

Class Parrot?was created specifically for educators, so safety is a key feature. With a unique code and phone number, students send a text to sign up; then educators manage texts from the website. The first 20 texts are free, and thereafter it?s $9 a month for unlimited texts.

One of the founders of Remind 101?had the idea to start this free service when he was an overwhelmed college student who lost track of due dates. In addition to a free account, the ability to add up to 10 classes, and a closed message system where phone numbers remain private, their blog is full of useful tidbits like profiles of teachers using the service, a recap of a Twitter chat on safe mobile communication, and this infographic on the benefits of texting.

Send Hub?features reasonable pricing plans (including a free option), educator testimonials, and assurance that your personal number stays private.

Will SMS revolutionize the classroom like the chalkboard did? Probably not. But, could it revolutionize?the way you communicate with students??Let us know what you think.

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Source: http://edcetera.rafter.com/reach-99-8-of-students-with-the-one-thing-youre-not-doing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reach-99-8-of-students-with-the-one-thing-youre-not-doing

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