Text Question?

Junior accounting major Jacqueline Jones texts a question during her business analysis class.

Students sending text messages in class might drive some instructors batty, but in a handful of business classes, texting is becoming a means for students to ask questions and learn.

Georgia State is piloting a new texting technology called Text Question System (TQS), said David McDonald, director of emerging technologies in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business.

"Think of the shy or international student who feels lost in a classroom of 200," McDonald said. "This allows them to anonymously ask questions using technology they already know and use, and they get credit for doing so."

McDonald helped create the system with FanDriveMedia, an Atlanta-based company already using similar technology on sports scoreboards and JumboTrons.

In fact, McDonald was at an event at Philips Arena when he came up with the idea.

"That's where the light bulb went up over my head," said McDonald. "I did some research, found nothing similar, and thought, 'I want to bring this to campus.'"

With TQS, when an instructor turns on a Power Point classroom presentation, students can text their questions directly from their cell phones to a specific number. Moments later - after going through a screening process - the questions scroll across the bottom of the presentation like a ticker in Times Square.

So far, the texting tool is being tested in 15 business classes. By next fall, McDonald hopes to roll out the technology campus-wide, and possibly at other institutions.