Today, I read an interesting article on Edsome.com (that's Educational Social Media, for those not familiar with it). The article was titled "Texting Paid Off!!!" by Karl Meindhardt. The article is about the implementation of a "social networking/social media strategy" at a Portland, Oregon middle school. Basically, the focus of this particular strategy was to improve daily student attendance at the school.
The school decided to form a "texting team" and recruit the most chronic attendance offenders to take part in the trial. Students' cell phone numbers are collected and a number of mass text messages are sent out to the group throughout the day to keep them on task, I suppose. "Time to wake up!!" texts every morning would not motivate me at all, though. The school developed a texting schedule which would get students up in the morning, move them forward to school in a timely manner, and get them to an attendance check-in station inside the school" on time.
I was more than a little leery about this strategy as I read the article. If student's aren't motivated to come to school (hence the high number of absentees), how in the world would you get them to give over their cell phone numbers so they can get text reminders a gazillion times a day? How does this help to re-engage students in the learning process? (Which is probably the main reason they don't come to school in the first place). I guess we have to start somewhere, though. Meindhardt did go on to say later on in the article that since the program was implemented in February 2010, the days of school per week missed by these "chronic attendance offenders" decreased by 35%. Maybe there's more to it than I'm seeing. Although this is a good strategy as far as making students accountable for their attendance in school, I just don't see it as a real learning motivator- which should be the ultimate goal. It does show, however, that technology can be used for so much more than we think sometimes, and is an invaluable asset in an educational setting.
Let me know what you think!!
This is an interesting application of a technology with which our students are all too familiar. I'm with you though, Nicole, in that I'm a little leery about it. I guess I wonder where the breakdown between the parent and student occurred. In an ideal world, the parent would model the behavior and show the student how to be self-motivated and punctual. At some point, the training wheels come off and the student begins to do it for himself. But then again, you can't argue with the numbers and if 35% more students are attending school, that's progress. Good post.
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