[mattcrest]

My wife is a middle school teacher and created a system similar to this using a Gmail account. She creates groups for each class, then emails to their SMS address ([e-mail] or similar).

This looks so much nicer than jacking around with all the various carrier email addresses manually.

I'll have her pass this along to her district. Best of luck!

[mahipal]

Thanks!

If she or other teachers have any questions, they're welcome to email me: m [at] classpager.com.

[mattcrest]

Sounds good. She sent a beta inquiry about getting her school on board with it.

I think the school/district-wide system is going to be your best bet. As I'm sure you're aware, teachers don't exactly bring home the bank. So personally dropping $10/mo for something like this isn't likely going to happen for most teachers (most provide quite a bit of in-classroom supplies out of pocket as well).

Something to consider in promoting to schools/districts: lack of parent involvement is one of the biggest reasons kids aren't doing well in school. By keeping parents informed on a regular basis about what their kids should be doing, there's a better chance homework will get done, studying for tests will happen, and those damn standardized test scores will improve. Well, that's the hope at least.

[webwanderings]

How does creating a contact group in Gmail connects it to a SMS number? I am curious.

[mattcrest]

Sorry for the slow reply, but, that in itself doesn't connect it to an SMS number. That's just so she can contact a class as a whole, rather than individually.

The SMS connection lies in that every mobile number has an email address associated with it. So you can send an email to that address and it will be delivered to the device as a text message.