Let’s face it. A lot has changed since many of us were in school.  But of all the advances and improvements during the last twenty years, the most dramatic change involves the proliferation of new technologies into the daily lives of everyone, but most certainly students and teens.

Communications that were once conducted in person, on the bus, at home, on the playground — all in-person forms of direct communication are now done remotely through online means, including social web sites, cell phones, instant messaging, text messaging and other forms are ubiquitous.

In this environment, it’s inconceivable that children and students are going to sit on a bench outside the principal’s office to communicate a problem or issue.  That’s old school and quite simply, ineffective.

So how can school administrators reach and communicate with today’s i-Generation?  Go online.

With so many new technologies, devices, technologies and web sites to keep up with, where do you start? Let’s remove the shroud of seeming complexity and break it down in its most basic terms.

Online messaging consists in three common forms; e-mail, instant messaging and text messaging.
E-mail is short for electronic mail and is a store and forward method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages to a web portal, or direct to one’s computer or laptop via a program such as Microsoft Outlook, a popular e-mail program.

Instant messaging is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.  Instant messaging differs from e-mail in that conversations happen in real-time. Instant messaging offers real-time communication and allows easy collaboration, which might be considered more akin to genuine conversation than email's "letter" format. In contrast to e-mail, the parties know whether the peer is available. Most systems allow the user to set an online status or away message so peers are notified when the user is available, busy, or away from the computer. On the other hand, people are not forced to reply immediately to incoming messages. For this reason, some people consider communication via instant messaging to be less intrusive than communication via phone. However, not all popular systems allow the sending of messages to people not currently logged on (offline messages), thus removing much of the difference between IM and email.

Text Messaging is another popular form of online messaging used frequently by students and is defined as a means of sending short messages to and from mobile phones. Text messaging or ‘texting ‘is the common term for the sending of "short" (160 characters or fewer) text messages, using the Short Message Service, from mobile phones. It is available on most digital mobile phones and some personal digital assistants with onboard wireless telecommunications. The individual messages which are sent are called text messages, and more colloquially SMSes, texts, or even txts (in "text speak").
The most common application of the service is person-to-person messaging, but text messages are also often used to interact with automated systems, such as ordering products and services for mobile phones, or participating in contests.
AnComm’s ‘Talk About It®’ anonymous online and text based reporting service supports all forms of online messaging so that no matter where children and students might be – on the playground, on the bus, home alone, in a classroom – they have access to ‘Talk About It’ and can reach out anonymously online to communicate with school administrators and counselors.

[Source: Wikipedia]