In addition to managing many great lifestyle offers for affiliates, Blue Phoenix Media also operates The Academic Network, a portal that hosts many educational opportunities. To that end, we also regularly highlight innovations happening across education despite shrinking budgets and disproportionate class sizes.

Classroom participation is enjoying a boom and all because of a gradual new trend blossoming across the country: Students using cell phones during class. In the Standard-Times, Elaine Marsilio writes on how by embracing the oldest form of social media, many teachers are seeing effective returns on their lesson plans.

By turning text messages into a way to communicate with their students, many teachers are earning the trust of students. They’re communicating with the student on the students’ terms. One teacher says:

They know I care. They are going to be more responsive.

The same teacher also says how she enjoys enthusiastic feedback through texts–the likes of which she never receives from students via raised hands. Texting also works as a way for more shy students to request help on homework assignments–when they might not be as likely to ask for assistance after class.

Although everything isn’t so sunny. In Louisiana, lawmakers are concerned that major student-teacher boundaries are breaking down with so much communication happening outside of the classroom. A new state law requires all students to document any text messages they have with students, even if communication is initiated by the student.

Many opponents are trying to overturn this law–reasoning that it prohibits teachers from earning the trust of their students and becoming effective mentors.

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