Cooked On Education

I’m a confessed technology and gadget geek. I love the stuff. One of the coolest gadgets to come out in recent memory is the iPhone. I’m not going to rehash all of the things that the iPhone can do here, but one thing I would like to highlight is its ability to access the internet on the go. With the iPhone (and other smart phones), you can access the vast information on the internet anywhere you can get a wireless signal. Unfortunately, two kids and a mortgage on a teacher’s salary does not afford me the ability to have an iPhone. But now I have discovered that I don’t need an expensive phone to search for info on the go. All I need is text messaging.

I recently discovered that Google Mobile has an SMS information service. It works like this: send a text to 466453 (’Google’ on most phones) and Google will text you back with the results of your search. For example, say I want to get last night’s Red Sox score. Send ’score red sox’ by text message and Google sends back the score and the date and time for the next game. Want to know what movies are playing in your area? Send ‘movies’ and your zip code. Google sends back a list of movies that are showing. Want to know what time one of the movies on the list is playing and where? Send the name of the movie and your zip code. Google sends back theater locations and show times. You can get word definitions, stock quotes, directions, flight information, and a lot more. You can get very useful and timely information, without an expensive phone and data plan.

Here also is an opportunity to educate students about appropriate ways to use text messaging. Why not have students bring their phones to class and give them a series of questions to answer using only this service? If your students don’t have a phone (or if your school, like mine, doesn’t allow them), Google has a simulated phone screen on the Google Mobile SMS page that can be used to test the service. This also saves you from incurring any charges for the text messages.

Have you ever used text messaging to search for information? What services have you used?