pg. 337 Questions (for October 8th, 2009)

1) What is SMS?
SMS is practically texting from one phone to another or to a database.

2) How is it used in Kenya?
In Kenya, SMS is used to help figure out and record info on the children with malnutrition. This is just a more efficient way of recording the data because there are so many children there who are getting their records down for malnutrition and I don't think they want any errors in their data, especially when it's being recorded. This makes it easier for them and helps the "patients" who really need special attention right away.

3) Social and Ethical issues:

Reliability: If the person who records the data makes a mistake when recording it, well that just won't be good. Also, what if the connection doesn't work where the people are at? That'll just cause more problems.
Privacy and Anonimity: Just the fact that the information is being sent through a phone doesn't make it seem too professional. Not that it isn't, but doesn't it mean that it goes through some kind of process to get sent somewhere? And when that happens, isn't there a "copy" saved? If not, can't other people read them? (not other normal people, but people who work with these things).


4) How can this be used in education?
This would actually be a very good use for educational purposes. A teacher can even assign homework and easily send SMS to their students. If a student wants to ask their teacher a question, that can easily be done at any time, anywhere. And I'm sure there are other advantages to using SMS in school, but I just don't know of all of them.