If you're like me, then you are always looking for a new way to get your announcements out, or to remind your students of an upcoming event. For years we have used phone trees, postcards, and videos, and those are ok, but let me tell you what I have learned. If you text your info in a short text message to a student, it's like magic or something. They just remember it better. There are TONS of web sites out there that can do a good enough job at making this happen for you, but one that you might want to check out is www.tatango.com. Tatango offers a 30 day Free trial also.
I have, through a good bit of trial and error, found an app for my phone (G1 thru T-Mobile) called SMS
Wishes. This amazing little app was free and allows you to schedule SMS text messages to go out to large numbers of people at one time. I'm sure that there are comparable apps out there for the I-phone and other smart phones on the market.
So stop spending time and money on postcards that get tossed, and try using bulk text messaging to contact your students. (works great for most adult volunteers too) Happy texting!!