February 18, 2005
Edu-Text: English lessons by SMS
Following an earlier story today on Random House's foray into educational content over cellphones, a brother and sister team from Leeds are offering a text messaging service to aid young people's literacy skills, reports Evening Post.
"Adrian Finnegan and Janine Dunnigan have set up their own company to harness thumb power. By signing up to edu-text, children aged 8 to 16 will be sent a challenging word every day to their phones, complete with its definition and example of it used in everyday context.
"The service can be incorporated into any child's learning programme," said Adrian, 34. "Edu-text's strength is that it is such a simple idea.
In order to subscribe, the child's parent must sign up to the service, which costs 25p a day, by texting "edutext" to 82189. Each fee is then charged to the parent's own mobile phone.
The pair believe they could use the country's 50 million mobile phones in a positive and educational way."
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