Monday, November 10, 2008
It’s freezing cold outside. You drag yourself out of the warm bed, throw on some clothes and trudge to class as the Kansas wind whips your face. Little did you know that on your commute to campus your professor decided to cancel class and alert everyone via e-mail.
Maybe you don’t check your e-mail when you wake up and you certainly don’t check it when you’re walking to school. There’s also the chance that you don’t check it on your break between classes.
We’ve all been in this situation before, but the worst part is there’s technology that could’ve kept us in our warm beds: texting.
Professors should have the ability to send a text message to students when class is canceled. This would prevent unpleasant surprises and unnecessary walks, drives and bus rides.
The funny thing is, we’ve been working on implementing this technology. More than a year ago, the administration started funding a program called Message Blox that does exactly this, according to an April 2007 Kansan article.
They beat me to the idea, but I don’t see the fruits of their labor.
Message Blox would allow student groups, teachers and the administration to send out mass texts. Not only would we have the convenience of being informed that we can sleep in, we could also get information from students groups we’re involved in and class groups we’re working with.
We already have a text program for emergencies as a part of the KU alert system. As of October 2007, 17,000 have signed up for it.
Implementing a program like Message Blox should be seriously considered because nine out of 10 college students own cell phones.
So why hasn’t anything been done with Message Blox?
Everyone wants to stay in a warm bed when possible, and it’d be great if we could do that more often. Systems like this one would definitely help us all do that.
— — Stewart is a Wichita senior in journalism.
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Comments
sjschlag (anonymous) says...
Don't most college students have blackberrys and iphones now a days? Can't you check your email on the go?
I still have a cell phone- does that make me a dinosaur?
November 11, 2008 at 12:06 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ebrown426 (anonymous) says...
I do not have an iphone or a blackberry. I can't check my e-mail unless I am at a computer. I must be a dinosaur too.
November 11, 2008 at 11:44 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
missmia (anonymous) says...
While it does make sense to alert students in the most accessible way possible that a class is cancelled, Stewart's reasoning could be better. Sleeping in isn't a good enough reason to implement a new program, however saving gas that would otherwise be wasted by all the students that drive (or ride) up to campus only to not have class- that's a more legitimate argument.
November 12, 2008 at 10:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )