I'm irrelevant...
The leadership development organization Growing Leaders recently asked focus groups of young adults (ages 16-24) how they prefer to receive communication. Their order of preference: text messages, MySpace and/or Facebook, podcasts, instant messaging, cell phone, CDs and DVDs. E-mail finished off the list in last place. [Growing Leaders Leadership Link, 3/08; ivyjungle.org, 3/08]
I'd been noticing this growing trend that my ingenious idea of using email to get in touch with our students was depressingly ineffective. Things change fast and this solid data definitely requires me to take a look at how we communicate with our students. I basically hear them saying, use email as a last resort. The interesting phenomenon is that MySpace and Facebook both has simple email features yet because they're embedded in so much more than just an email address it seems to get the priority attention. We've recently been attempting to figure out how to send group text messages from a computer, we're not quite there yet but I'll keep you posted. I should do this survey with our middle schoolers, I wonder what they'd say. The only problem is I'd want to email it to them...hmm...what to do?
dude, have you tried twitter yet? you can get and send as a text or just online or embed it in your facebook, myspace and blog.
check out my blog to get a really cool handle on it.
josh--i read that too, and was amazed. it's soooo true though. i have facebook now & it's hugely effective in contacting the people you think have fallen off the face of the earth. :)
i laughed really hard when someone commented that email was a way to communicate with old people. LOL
Facebook or Text has been best for me. Personally, I am not a huge fan of Twitter. However, we are looking into some programs for mass text messages. Students could sign up to receive messages (as long as they have unlimited text)
the problem is that so many students are using so many different modes of communication. I still have a hand full who don't even have an email. What do you do then?
WEIGH IN