Emerging Role of Short Message System (SMS) in Medical Education

Abstract

SMS is an ordinarily used mobile phone service which allows users to communicate in short textual phrases up to 160 characters long. Widespread mobile phone technology has allowed for effective use of text messaging in many teaching activities. SMS has shown to be a powerful, cheap and easily accessible instrument for enhancing student learning. The ubiquitous use of mobile devices presents a prime opportunity to address major drawbacks seen with present-day challenges in learning, assessment, and evaluation of education activities. SMS can deliver succinct realtime information on daily teaching lessons; therefore, students can offer feedback immediately after the learning session. Proactive rating of the learning sessions will help improve the quality of student feedback and the overall assessment of the course. Widespread mobile phone technology has allowed for effective use of text messaging in many teaching programs. The recent literature in higher education has shown SMS to be a frugal and easily accessible instrument for enhancing student learning.