SMS as a tool for lecturing

Our Asian students are traditionally a quiet breed, never speak or ask in public, especially in the lecture hall. Lecturing in USM is “easy” but unchallenging because you never got any query from the students publicly. On the other hand, they students keep smsing when the lecturer was speaking. Then I thought why not I get them to sms me instead of to their friend? My hand phone sms alert tone start to ring intermittently amidst the lecture, as I announce my mobile number to the class to encourage students to ask questions via sms. This trick works very well, and I got frequent questions from the students via sms when I was talking. When my mobile phone sms alert tone ‘interrupts’ more frequently, I feel a non-vocal rapport established between me and the anonymous sms-senders who sit among the students. This, I reckon, is one of the best ways sms can be used for more noble purpose than forwarding junk messages.

Throughout the last 7 years in USM, I have attempted many ways to incorporate electronic / IT related approaches to enhance the teaching of physics and mathematics subjects. Having no quantitative data to quantify the effectiveness in adopting electronic and IT approach in the teaching process, I dare not claim that these approaches is a more superior way to teach physics and math than a conventional no-computer approach (though I personally wish to think so). For sure, all these attempts take time to prepare, and demand quit a bit of computer know-how to implement. But ultimately, what truly matters is the personal motivation to make physics / mathematic comprehensible to the students.