txttools limited

78 million text messages are sent every day in the UK and most of them are from children. We explain how your school can benefit from texting and cut costs at the same time.

6 June 2006.
Leeds, UK

When we think of text messaging let’s face it, we normally associate it with kids. If we work in schools we normally see it as a bleeping nuisance rather than something which could actually be useful to the School’s management.

Yet believe it or not you don’t need a set of prehensile thumbs and a blindfolded knowledge of the alpha side of the telephone keypad to be able to send a text message.

Imagine if you could type messages into a simple web interface? What if you could store as many numbers as you liked? What if you could send messages to groups now or schedule them for delivery at some time in the future? What if those messages could be for parents or students? You can. That technology is available now.

The SMS (Short Message System) text message market is booming. This time last year there were close to 2 billion messages in one month sent in the UK, today it is almost 3 billion and the growth shows no signs of slowing.

Why? How has this medium become so popular? The answers are fairly straightforward: It is quick, discreet, to the person, to the point, inexpensive and eco-friendly. It is possible to get simple messages across without the need for an involved phone call and all the pleasantries that top and tail such calls. It is also possible for text messages to be converted to a voice mail when sent to a landline.

So what about use in schools? We investigated the ways that schools are using desktop text messaging and these are some of our findings: Instant messages – about school closure, rearranged sports fixtures or late returning trips. Reminders or changes to parent teacher evenings / training days / calendar dates. Reminders to sign up for trips, or return forms. In house communication between management teams / heads of year etc. Daily exam tips sent to help students revise.

There are a number of companies which offer SMS services, but only one company which specialises in the education market: edutxt. The edutxt application is a secure online application, you log in online much like you do when you are accessing online banking – in fact the security is the same.

edutxt is used by 130 UK universities & colleges and hundreds of schools. It allows the user to simply manage, send and receive text messages to a mobile phone anywhere in the world. It is possible to send a text to one person or any number of people instantly.

Stephen McCann, managing director of edutxt says; “Text messaging is causing the same kind of stir in the business world that e-mail did 10 years ago when it started to replace paper communication, it revolutionized fast, effective, to-the-point communication. The key difference is that e-mail is still only available to a percentage of the population and when they are at their desks – the mobile phone is with almost the entire population wherever they are day and night”

For further information e-mail info@edutxt.co.uk or visit www.edutxt.co.uk

A one month free trial is available on request.

About edutxt®

“mobile technology helping people to manage their lives”

The company specialises in high quality text message applications for the education sector. edutxt® is used extensively in schools, colleges and universities to communicate with students and parents.

PRESS CONTACT
For further information or a free trial please contact:

Stephen McCann,
Managing Director
t: +44(0)113 234 2111
m: +44(0)7866 438056
e: smccann@cy-nap.com
w: www.txttools.co.uk

Norton have chosen edutxt® as it the only real SMS text message application developed specifically for education

June 2006

Sheffield’s Norton College is into its second year of using text messaging to stay in touch with students. It is clearly working. Judy Hennessy is the Planning and Quality Manager for the College and she has found the edutxt package from, message specialists, Cy-nap to be the right tool for the job:

“We were just a few weeks into our first year of using text messaging to contact students when a tutor stopped me on the corridor to say how much better communication was now he could text his tutor group and that he hoped we’d continue to use texting. He wasn’t the only one to be impressed and now we’re now signed up for another year when we’ll be rolling the scheme out to even more staff and students. Other members of staff, were equally complimentary: Kevin Scott believes that “The system has been very useful” and John Boulton commented “I have found the service to be extremely useful from a personal tutor point of view both in terms of getting individual messages to students and to the full tutor group. This has ensured that attendance at tutorials has been very good”.

As Planning and Quality Manager for Norton College I’ve been pleased with our edutxt package of services and support; the training was excellent and the support was there on the few occasions we needed it right through the year.

In our pilot year we concentrated on our full time 16-18 year olds who, because of the programmes they were following, didn’t necessarily see their Personal Tutors every day. These were the A level students and those on Foundation Studies programmes. We wanted to make sure that, in addition to sending information and reminders, absences from class were picked up and dealt with as soon as possible. A text message was one quick way to do this. It also had the advantage that students are used to communicating by text, they like it as a way of keeping in touch and also it was a lot cheaper and quicker for the college than phoning or writing letters. The speed with which students responded to our texts was very clear when they picked up our occasional competition texts – we had our winners within minutes. These competitions, with prizes such as free tickets to Basketball games, helped students to see college texts as part of a range of communications – not always chasing them to ‘do’ something!

It’s been very useful to be able to use the summer break period to schedule into the system many of our general reminders (about Parents’ evenings), greetings (related to various religious festivals) and welcomes (at the start of each term and half term). This means we can plan ahead and don’t have to send all our texts ‘live’. Scheduling messages ahead is one of the application’s many useful features.

We have good attendance and retention rates at Norton College, but we want them to be better and believe that texting is helping us to improve our statistics. We like the ease of use of edutxt, the value for money and the way it helps to keep learners engaged with the college and with their learning goals. The students like the improved information they get, the reminders and the speed of a modern means of communication that they themselves use constantly. We look forward to extending text messaging to more staff and student groups and to expanding the way we use the service. It’s so easy, useful and well supported that we feel confident in doing this – even those more traditional staff who use standard English rather than Txt-speak are starting to feel the benefits.

Stephen McCann, managing director of Cy-nap, commented: “Norton are definitely one of our forward thinking, fast moving customers. We have always found that the best way of planning future application development for our products has been to listen very carefully to what the users are saying. We find input from colleges such as Norton invaluable”

About Norton College

Based in Sheffield alongside its high quality academic programmes, Norton College offers wide ranging vocational opportunities at all levels, covering Business, IT, Leisure, Sport and Tourism, Graphics, Art and Design, Photography, Multimedia, Performing Arts and Journalism.

For further information please contact:

Judy Hennessy, Planning and Quality Manager, Norton College, Sheffield.

e-mail: Judy.Hennessy@sheffcol.ac.uk

About Cy-nap

“mobile technology helping people to manage their lives”

txttools™ is a brand of Cy-nap Ltd, the company was established in January 2001 and is the result of over 14 years of innovation within the technology market.

edutxt® is used extensively in schools, colleges and universities

meditxt® has been developed specifically for use in hospitals, clinics and surgeries

For further information please contact:

Stephen McCann,
Managing Director
t: +44(0)113 234 2111
m: +44(0)7866 438056e: smccann@cy-nap.com
w: www.cy-nap.com www.txttools.co.uk