SMS in Kenya

What is SMS?
SMS (short message service) is basically text messaging from a phone to another phone, or in this case, to a database.

How is it used in Kenya?
In Kenya, SMS is being used to help record information concerning the malnutrition of children. Malnutrition is measured based on the circumference and length of a child's upper arm. This is simple enough, but recording the data, especially when dealing with thousands of children can be tricky and error-prone. In order to creat a more efficient and quick means of recording the information, health workers use SMS to send the information of each child from their phones to a medical database.This way they may know if there is someone too malnurished and need sudden attention, they can get it quickly.

Social/Ethical issues:
Privacy and Anonymity: The personal medical information of each child can be at risk of being revealed if the SMS is accidently sent to the wrong phone or database.
Reliability: If the health worker recording the information is in a zone where they can't recieve the cell-phone service with which to send the SMS, the news will be delayed, and they may resort to wrting out the information which could lead to mistakes because tis a tedious process.

How can this be used in education?
SMS can be used between teachers and students while on a field trip in case the student gets lost. Its might also be helpful for a student to ask the teacher a quesion without disturbing others when in a quiet area.