Is Dial2Do...The New Free Jott...

I have been playing with Dial2do for a short while and have found it to be a useful service. While many of my favorite Jott features are now paid services (such as sending a speech to text Jott to my Google calendar or creating speech to text emails that are longer than 15 seconds), Dial2do's services are free and work in a similar fashion to Jott. You can create contacts and groups to send speech-to-text voicemails or emails. Additionally, Dial2do is available in 19 different countries! Similar to Jott Links and Jott Feeds, Dial2do also links up with a variety of useful sites such as...

• Google Calendar or 30Boxes
• Translate (will translate what you say and text back the version in a foreign language)
• Twitter
• Email
• Evernote
• Tumblr
• Blogger
• Wordpress
  
• Weather (listen to your local weather report)
• Remember the Milk
  

While Dial2do also has a "Jott Feeds" option where you can listen to RSS feeds such as The New York Times or TechCrunch, the bonus that Dial2do brings is that you can also listen to your calendar, twitter, or even emails! Wow! I love this feature. You do not have to have mobile Internet access to check your schedule, listen to your latest emails or twitter friends. Therefore without mobile Internet you can still FULLY participate in these necessarily management resources!

Classroom Connections
Management
Dial2Do allows students to use their phone's to manage their emails, calendars, and reminders without having to access the Internet. Therefore students who do not have Internet access at home but do have cell phones (with or without Internet access) can still fully participate in digital management by using Dial2do. For example they can call their Google calendar and listen to their upcoming assignments and due dates. Teachers could even create class calendars that students and parents and listen to through Dial2do to get homework and project information.

Assistive Devices
Visually impaired students can more easily participate in social networking and management related to class content by using Dial2do's call in and listen to features. For example a student can post on their Twitter account by calling Dial2do AND they can hear all the reactions to their post by calling Dial2do and saying "listen to Twitter"! They can also post and listen to their Remember the Milk reminders and checklists. The same is true of email and calendar accounts.

Foreign Language and Culture Studies
Since Dial2do links with Translate, students who are studying a foreign language could use it to learn new phrases and translations on-the-go. For example as a homework assignment the students could come up with some phrases or words that they normally do not study in class (but find them useful or interesting in their everyday lives) and find out the translation by calling Dial2do. The next day in class, the student's could share the translation and with their teacher's help give the proper pronunciations.

Science
Using Dial2do's weather services, students could track weather phenomenon such as cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, or tilde waves. This could be done by having different students each sign up with a different location (city or zip code) for their weather report. As a result, they could each call in to get the daily updates as the weather pattern changes and effects different areas. For example if a hurricane is about to hit Texas, one student could sign up for the Texas city, another student for a city a few hours away, another for a city five hours away, and so on....so they can track the weather as it changes from major city to major city. It might be an engaging way to track atmospheric patterns.