Task.fm: Text and voice reminders for students and teachers---EASY! EASY! EASY!

There are many different cell phone reminder services available online. Many of which I have written about. A few examples include Sendible, Abbyme, Remember the Milk, Google Cal, ReQall, and Alerts. Recently I have been using Task.fm. Task.fm is a reminder service that uses uses semantic technology to translate human speak into an email, text and/or voice reminder. This means that you only have to type in your reminder on Task.fm, such as "assignment due at 4:00pm on May 26th". Task.fm will automatically understand the date and time of the reminder (no need to select dates and times from a menu or schedule). The only negative that I found with this site is that you get 10 SMS or voice reminders for free and then you need to pay for them. If you like this site, I recommend you emailing Task.fm and asking for a free educator version!! It does not hurt to ask.

Notifu, Interactive Mobile Messaging for Teachers

I have posted in the past about messaging services such as Remindr, Dial2do, Jott, Remember the Milk, and Sendible. All of which I think are useful. But I have to add another messaging service to this list. It is called Notifu. Notifu allows for group messaging, polling, and FEEDBACK! That is correct, I said, feedback. Notifu allows you to send a message to a person's perferred form of communication such as IM, Twitter, email, or Text Message. Once you create a contact with the contact's preferred communication, you can easily send group messages to multiple contacts and receive feedback from them (no matter which communication tool they are using). For example, I sent out a poll to all my contacts in a particular group asking them what time they preferred to meet. I gave them choices of 4:30, 5:00, & 6:00. When they got their message, they could reply with n4 (for 4:30), n5 (for 5:00) or (n6 for 6:00). Along with their reply they could also send back a message to me such as "n4 cannot attend any other time". All of this feedback is directed into my Notifu account, where the polling and feedback are quantified into legible data.

Classroom Applications
Scheduling and Group Management
I immediately thought this tool could be helpful with administrators and teachers who are trying to schedule and communicate with committees, student and parent groups. In addition, students who form their own study groups can take advantage of Notifu for messaging between the group members.

Polling and Feedback
While I love Polleverywere and Textthemob for in-class polling via cell phones, I think Notifu is a great way to conduct polls and get feedback outside of the classroom.

Brainstroming
The teacher can send out an inquiry question or getting-started question that will be used in class the following day. Students can text back their answer, which automatically appears in the teacher's account. The teacher can then project the answers on the LCD screen the next class session and discuss the answers.

Quizzes
The teacher can send some quiz or review questions to the students by using the polling feature and get the answers back in their private Notifu account (in a timely manner).

Homework
The teacher can send out homework questions or ask for questions on their homework assignments. Students can text back their answers. For example an English teacher can ask his/her students to "summarize" in 160 characters or less, the plot for their Shakespeare reading that night. By asking for short summaries, it forces students to be mindful of their descriptions in their answers (not easy to do with Shakespeare!).

4INFO...Text Info Web Search and Alerts

While I have posted multiple times about my love for ChaCha, a free guided Internet search tool that answers any question from anywhere! I am now adding 4INFO to my phone contact list. 4INFO is an SMS text messaging service that allows anyone to text a search term to 44636. Then within seconds, they will receive a text back with the search. 4INFO has some built-in categories such as stocks, sports, weather, news, airline info...etc.

Besides texting a search to 4INFO, you can also create an account on the website and set up alerts/reminders to send to your phone as designated times (similiar to PingMe, AbbyMe, Sendible, Alerts.com, BitBomb, & rminder). 4INFO also allows you to create custom searches, reminders, and alerts.

Classroom Connections:
While I do think that ChaCha is still the best for guided Internet searches, I do like the built-in reminder alerts in 4INFO (which ChaCha does not currently have).

Business Classes
I love the stock market search options on 4INFO! They are great for tracking the market in business or social studies courses. In addition, they could do price comparisions (a search option in 4INFO) on products (great for math courses too!).

Current Events (Social Studies/Science)
In social studies and science courses where current events are important to understanding the course content, students could get weekly news alerts on topics of choice OR they could text a curricular topic (such as stem cell research) to 4INFO to find out the latest information.

BASIC Cell Phones Can Be Assistive Technologies

While we are starting to see cell phones and software being developed specially for the blind and deaf, I wanted to take a few minutes and explore how BASIC cell phones (without the costly software) can be assistive devices for hearing impaired and visually impaired students. I am NOT an expert on assistive technologies, but I have been hearing from more teachers on how their special needs students are benefiting from cell phone technology, so I wanted to share what I have learned.

For the Visually Impaired
A VI teacher in one of my courses (Julie Burger) shared with me that her VI students often are the last to get to experience new technologies because the technologies need to be modified for the visually impaired. For example digital resources often need to be modified for screen readers. However, Julie became very excited about the possibilities of cell phones in learning because she realized that this would be one time that her VI students could be on the forefront of technologies (possibly even being able to introduce their new mobile tool discoveries with their classmates without disabilities). A basic cell phone offers the ability for visually impaired to do the following;

1. Listen to any webpage
2. Listen to newscasts and podcasts
3. Send Speech to Text emails
4. Send Speech to Text Blog posts
5. Send Speech to Text Group posts (to places like Yahoo Groups)
6. Send Speech to Text Calendar appointments and meetings
7. Receive Voicemail reminders
8. Listen to text messages

Hearing Impaired Students
While VI students can take advantage of speech to text, and text to speech options in cell phones, HI students can take advantage of these same options on a basic cell phone but in the opposite directions. For examples, HI students can type in text and it can be sent to other students/teachers cell phones as a audio message. A basic cell phone offers the following options for hearing impaired students to better participate in their everyday class activities:

1. Send text messages that can become audio web-based posts (such as podcasts)
2. Send text messages that can become audio Voicemail
3. Receive an audio Voicemail message that can be transcribed into a text message
4. Read podcasts/audio broadcasts on their cell phone
   

The following are some free applications that couple with basic cell phones for students with assistive needs. The best part of these resources is that they can be used by any student (Univerisal Design), and they are a great way for teachers to be inclusive when developing assignments, group projects, or even basic class activities.

Free Mobile Resources for VI and HI Learners
Jott (Speech to Text Translation, emails, appointments)
Jott Feeds (Listen to text-based webpages)
Rocketron (Listen to news feeds)
Rminder (Text to Speech reminders)
PingMe (Text Message Reminders for groups and individuals)
Text4deaf (2-way text messaging, keeps tracks of texts, sends to individuals/groups) (Thanks to
Karen Montgomery for showing me this resource!)
ChaCha or Mymiamia for Google Searches (Text Message for HI students)
Dial2do (Speech to Text)
YouMail & GrandCentral (Transcriptions of VoiceMail)
Sendible (Text-Based Evites)
Voki (Text to Speech Avatars)
Hey Cosmos (Text Message to Speech Surveys and Quizzes)
Google Voice (Voicemail with Speech to Text Transcription)
Phonevite (Voice Message surveys, quizzes, and feedback)

I know a few others also are researching and using cell phones as assitive tools, please share your ideas and resources.