Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Using SMS in the e-portfolio process?

I am following an EPortfolio Conversations Google Group, where a question was raised about collecting evidence of informal learning rather than formal education. One response: "Start with SMS [on mobile phones] - its the morse code of the present generation...and it works." Here is my response:

Being a Baby Boomer, and only learning about SMS from my kids and grandkids, I need to learn more about how we can use SMS in ePortfolio development. I am doing a workshop at ISTE in Philadelphia in June entitled, "Hands-on mPortfolio Development with iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)." In all cases, there is a Web 2.0 website where we will post the artifacts and reflections "in real time".

Although smart phone ownership (Android, iOS) is growing, these tools are not widely owned by teenagers. Where does a student store SMS messages online? I know my teenage granddaughter updates her Facebook page with her "feature phone" but that is not an option for most schools. I am looking for the practical applications, because I am getting inquiries from educators in the developing world, where the plain old mobile phone is the tool students have available for Electronic Documentation of Learning? In my opinion, that is the first step in building an ePortfolio: collection of artifacts (in text, images, audio, video) and reflection on experiences/artifacts (in any of those same formats).

Maybe we could learn from what Google is doing in Egypt right now: providing local telephone numbers to call; the service simply delivers a link on Twitter so you can hear the actual voice message! In the U.S., Google Voice messages can be saved as MP3, and imperfectly translated into text. (I heard of one teacher who sits in his car--his quiet recording studio--and records his reflections as a voice message in Google Voice.) What else? I am looking for a blog-like tool that can be updated by a plain mobile phone. What Web 2.0 tools, besides Facebook, are accessible from SMS? After a little research, I found instructions for posting from SMS to Blogger and WordPress, but it looks like this service is only available within the USA. I suppose Posterous would work as well, if the message comes in as an email. You can also use SMS to post to Twitter.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

blogger allows you to text a post or post photos