While students have access to the Internet at school, many do not have Internet access at home. According to a recent survey by CITA, 71% of U.S. Households have Internet access. Thus a decent percentage of U.S. children do not have access to the Internet in their own home. While 84% of 16 year old Teenagers have cell phones. But only 15% of Teenagers own a Smartphone. Therefore if we know that the majority of secondary students have their own cell phone (or could use a parent's cell phone) and we know that most students do not have access to the Internet on their phone (or at least unlimited access), than educators should consider ways to use basic SMS (the most popular choice of communication on teenagers cell phones) in learning. A resource called DOTGO will search the Internet via SMS text messaging (no mobile Internet required). DOTGO works by allowing anyone (no need to sign up) to send a text message to 368266. In the message they can type in any domain name such as "cnn" or "cellphonesinlearning". They will then be sent a text message reply with menu options to search the site. For example you might receive a message from
CNN...reply with the correct #Learning Connections
1) National News
2) World News
3) Sports
4) Entertainment
5) Politics
6) Technology
You reply to the appropriate number and ---Presto! You get a text message with all the information (headlines and stories).
I think DOTGO has some potential for students who need to use the Internet for homework, but do not have access at home. If the students do not have their own cell phone, they could use their parents' cell phones. Since the cell phones do not need to have mobile Internet to use DOTGO, it allows for more accessibility at little or no cost. Of course students need to be aware of their text messaging plans. In some ways I find this resource similiar to ChaCha. ChaCha allows you to text or call in a question and receive a text message response within minutes. However since you can only ask one question at a time and the answer is limited by 140 characters, DOTGO allows students to research information further and get more specific details.
