Texting+Ideas

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Text Messaging is a central part of student culture today. We just moved my son (youngest child) into college. During the entire experience, he was constantly pulling his phone out of his pocket, reading it, typing something in, and then slipping it back into his pocket. He has not left his friends behind, the way I did when I went off to college. He is constantly engaged in a conversation, no mater where he is.

I wonder if there might be ways that NECC could demonstrate some school or instructional applications of texting. One thing we might do is allow attendees to sign up for a texting of their schedule. It might be tied in with their planners, so that at the end of each session, they would receive a text message to their phones listing the sessions they have expressed an interest in through the conference planner.

If people establish some type of profile of the things they need to see at NECC, vendors might have a way of texting (privacy issues assumed) people when they will be doing a demo of some relevant product.

As a presenter, I have quotes from my major presentations that I sometimes play on a slide as people are walking out of the room. It might be that audience members might like to have individual quotes texted to them periodically.

Certainly, this could be overdone. But I wonder about some brainstorming about the potentials.

Anita It would be nice to have some type of messaging going on to get attendees used to using it themselves and then they may be more open to educational applications.