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Technology Tools

Expand your teaching toolkit with technology tools. Find reviews of tech tools, gadgets and software that can be used in your classroom to complement and augment your curriculum.

Can’t dance? You can still ChaCha™!

According to the ChaCha™ website, ChaCha works with virtually every cell phone service provider and allows people to ask any question in conversational English and receive an accurate answer as a text message. To ask a question, simply dial 1-800-2ChaCha (800-224-2242) and ask verbally. Or, you can send a text message to 242242 (spells ‘ChaCha’). Regardless of which way you use, send the question and an answer will be sent back to you via text message within a few minutes.

When a question is sent to ChaCha, a worker, or “guide,” reviews pre-approved resources for an answer and replies to the sender. The advantage of using ChaCha, as opposed to more traditional search engines such as Google™, is that the response is personal and specific. Therefore, information seekers do not need to sift through volumes of “hits” to uncover the correct answer to their question. ChaCha claims to have about 25,000 guides, many of whom are stay-at-home moms or college students interested in earning extra income.

According to the ChaCha website, “We're asked millions and millions of questions from everyday, normal queries to some that are completely out of the ordinary.” Likewise, they tout a 93% accuracy rate. This accuracy level may suffice for casual answers “on the fly,” however, may not be good enough if getting the correct answer is critical. For example, you may not want to depend on a 93% accuracy rate for answering medical or legal questions since approximately 1 in every 14 responses is inaccurate. All questions are answered in fewer than 160 text characters, so lengthy elaborations or explanations are not possible.

Other search engines are available for cell phone users, too. Google offers text message searches using Boolean descriptors, and cell phones with web access capabilities can use traditional browser search engines. Another cell phone search engine offers a personal response similar to that of ChaCha. Kgb™ (text to 542542) provides a similar service, but for a charge of 30 cents for each question answered. However, at the present time, ChaCha seems to be the industry leader in this ever evolving field. So, even if you can’t dance, try the ChaCha! You will be amazed!

Disclaimer: The Corporation for Educational Technology (Buddy) has no agenda other than the interests of K-12 educators. Technology product reviews render no financial incentive to our organization.

This article appeared in the ETC...and More! volume 2, number 4 newsletter and is published by the Buddy Project (Corporation for Educational Technology), in collaboration with the Hoosier Educational Computer Coordinators (HECC), Indiana Computer Educators (ICE), the Indiana Department of Education, and Promoting Achievement through Technology and INstruction for all Students (PATINS).