Getting "Vocel"

Since I've been talking a lot about the potential for delivering education to handheld devices, I decided to actually search the Net for companies that may be doing this. Right away, I discovered a company in the U.S. called Vocel. This company was founded by a parent, Carl Washburn, who wanted to help his son study for the SAT.

By partnering with Princeton Review and having developed "push" technology that sends sample test questions to a cell phone, Vocel has basically come up with the very idea I have been discussing on this blog. The term "bite-sized chunks" of education is even included on the company's web site. Must be a case of great minds thinking alike.

There are also some media reviews of the technology which point out the positives and negatives of this new kind of learning. Interesting points were made in this article from December 2004, and in this article from August 2004. I thought that the suggestion that kids may have to be concerned about zealous parents sending questions throughout the day was a good one.

Just like any technology that seems like a good one at the start, there are often unforeseen side effects that have to be dealt with. I think this is where I find interest in pursuing further study.