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Everything you need to introduce generative AI and connectivity to your classroom- even when students don't have internet at home
Many students struggle with homework at home but lack reliable internet access to get help online. However, most families have access to basic cell phones with SMS texting. Room160 bridges this gap by letting students text their homework questions and receive immediate help - either from AI or directly from you, their teacher, from your email inbox. You will get a special number you can give families and respond from your school email, making it easy to protect your privacy and your off time while providing a high-quality resource for your students.
The Problem We Solve:
- Students need homework help but don't have internet at home
- Giving out your phone number is a privacy and work/life balance nightmare
- Traditional tutoring isn't available 24/7
- Teachers want to help but can't be available around the clock
- Parents may not be able to help with advanced coursework
How Room160 Helps:
- Students text homework questions to get instant AI help or reach you directly
- AI provides immediate, educational responses for most questions
- You receive email notifications when students contact you
- Works with any basic cell phone - no smartphone or internet required for your students
How Room160 Works:
1. Student texts a question to your Room160 phone number
2. Messages are routed
- Messages starting with "@teacher" → You get email notification with student's phone number
- Other questions → AI responds automatically via SMS
3. Tracability - Email notifications include the student's phone number
4. You stay in control - Receive email alerts and can disable AI anytime
AI Technology: Uses Claude 3 Haiku for fast, cost-effective student responses
What does Room160 mean?
SMS messages are capped at 160 characters, so the project name is a playful reference to this underlying technology. Room160 will send multi-part responses, however, so you don't need to worry about message length limits!
Costs and What you'll Need
Costs and What you'll Need
You'll need to provide:
- Your email address - Where student messages will be forwarded
- An Amazon Web Services (AWS) Account - Sign up here!
- TextBelt API Key - Simple online SMS service (get started at textbelt.com)
Cost: Approximately $2-8/month depending on usage (AWS charges + TextBelt SMS costs)
Deployment
Deployment
Deploying is simple! You don't need to know how to code or use cloud services. Simply follow along and we will get you started.
Step 1 - Enable AI Models in AWS (Required!)
Step 1 - Enable AI Models in AWS (Required!)
Log into your Amazon Web Services account. AWS requires manual approval for ALL AI models. This is unfortunately unavoidable, but just enabling them doesn't cost you anything!
1. Go to Amazon Bedrock Console
- Visit https://console.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/
- Choose the region: us-east-1 (Virginia). You may have to do this from the top right of the navigation bar.
2. Request Model Access
- Click "Model access" in the left sidebar
- Find the "Anthropic" section
- Check Claude 3 Haiku, as shown above
- Click "Request model access"
- Fill in the provided form. See an example below!
- Wait 1-5 minutes for automatic approval
3. Verify Access
- Status should change from "Pending" to "Access granted" on the Bedrock page where we started.
Step 2 - Sign Up for TextBelt
Step 2 - Sign Up for TextBelt
TextBelt is a simple online service Room160 uses for sending text messages from your deployed software. You can sign up in minutes and buy as many or as few text messages as you would like!
Navigate to the TextBelt website and click "Create an API Key" or click here.
Purchase as many texts as you wish and save the API key, shown with a yellow background, in a safe place. You will also need this key to reload your account in the future and you will need it when we go back to AWS.
Once you purchase your messages, you will be prompted to describe how the SMS recipients have opted into your service. You can paste in this message we have prepared:
"As students in a classroom that uses Room160 software (https://github.com/kevinl95/Room160) permission was granted by providing the teacher with a phone number for homework help and student communication."
Step 3 - Deploy Room160 to AWS
Step 3 - Deploy Room160 to AWS
We are just a few clicks away from deploying Room160!
CLICK HERE TO DEPLOY ROOM 160 TO YOUR AWS ACCOUNT
Give your stack, or deployment, any name you wish. Enter the details we have collected into the form, as shown below, and click "Next". You can choose to disable AI any only receive messages from your students by setting EnableAI to false.
On the next page, scroll to the bottom and click that you agree CloudFormation may create new IAM resources on your behalf as part of deploying Room160. What this means is that you are allowing Room160 to create rules so it has permissions for resources it needs to operate. Click "Next".
Scroll to the bottom of the next page and click "Submit".
In a new tab, go to the email account you configured Room160 with. In a few moments you will receive an email from AWS Notifications asking if you would like to subscribe to messages from Room160. Click "Confirm Subscription".
You will be brought to a page that looks like the one below. You can close this page and return to AWS.
After several minutes Room160 will finish deploying. You should see a "Create Complete" message under Room160 on the Stacks page, like the one below.
On the right-hand side, navigate to Outputs. There should be one entry- a link to a webpage where you'll be able to enroll your students' phone numbers! Keep this URL safe.
Step 4 - Enrolling Students
Step 4 - Enrolling Students
Click the Enrollment URL from the previous step. You will be brought to a page that looks like this:
Enter your students' numbers using one of the formats shown, one on each line. When finished, click "Enroll Students". You will get a confirmation message that looks like this:
Each student will receive a confirmation message that looks like the one below. They do not need to take any action and can can start sending messages immediately.
Step 5 - Send Messages
Step 5 - Send Messages
Students can send you an email by sending a text message by including @teacher at the beginning of their message, like so:
You will then receive an email like the one below. While the student's number will be displayed, it is a good idea to request that they send additional context and contact information:
Queries without @teacher will get an AI response. The AI model has a system prompt not to respond to inappropriate content or provide inappropriate responses.
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