Universities And Schools Moving Towards Text Communications

Permalink: Universities And Schools Moving Towards Text Communications
by Alan Harten

Clickatell is a leading regular mobile messaging provider who is moving steadily into the education arena.

Basically they have spotted the need for all kinds of communications related to education facilities.

They see a big demand for text messaging, including professor-to-student, educational institution-to-community and, probably least popular with kids, teacher-to-parent.

There is also a considerable demand for alarm type services in schools and universities to warn all staff and students of emergencies with just one text.

These kinds of services could prove very useful in cases of, for example, bad weather, where parents may need to be informed the school is closing early or perhaps that it is not opening today.

Figures show that 80% off all students text every day. Even very old people, that’s parents aged 30-40, text around half that amount.

That amounts to 75 billion text messages, each day, in the US alone.

There are now several providers in the UK and Ireland who specialise in this area of text communication including, Edulink, Schools-SMS, SMS Engine, Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN).

According to these organisations not only is the simple text highly cost effective, it is also highly efficient.

This schools’ texting is spreading rapidly across the world with all kinds of educational institutions jumping into the technology.

Many schools already use text to announce plays, school open days, and parents’ evenings.

University professors use them to communicate with individual students or all their student body.

One of the big advantages for schools is the low set up cost and the low ongoing fees.

This now avoids sending notes home with forgetful students and individually phoning the parents of 200 students to inform them of a situation.

One other developing area is schools and in particular universities using the service to contact each other to exchange information.

Unfortunately in America this solution is seen as the possible best way to deal with the ongoing “school shooting” situations.

Many schools want a way to inform students of such an extreme emergency and this may be the best solution available.