Vocab question

[Nordic Bill]

What do you call the list a group of students fills out at the beginning of a course or school term with their names and telephones on it? I believe I have heard the word phone tree?

Basically, it looks like a series of boxes, each containing a student's name and phone number, and each is connected with an arrow pointing downward to the box under it.

If a teacher were to fall ill and wanted to cancel the class, s/he would call the person at the top of the "phone tree" who in turn would relay the message to the person under him/her, that person would do the same, yada yada yada, until everyone on the list had received notification that the lesson was cancelled.

Pretty good invention, especially here in Europe, where call$ co$t.

[Marylin]

Your definition fits to a tee but I am more familiar with the term "contact list" . It has either the students' phone numbers or their email addresses...or sometimes both. Quite often profs in here just e-mail their students and throw all the emails addresses into the "recipient" line. It's quite nice though if they care enough to give the student(s) a call.

[Nordic Bill]

Thank you, Marylin.

But this would just be an actual list as such, right? We have those too - I was thinking more along the lines of the pyramid concept where each student can see who he/she is responsible for calling.

In any case, I do appreciate your getting back to me on this and confirming the contact list setup for me.

Rgs,
Bill

[Tdol]

Phone tree exists-
A phone tree is a prearranged, pyramid-shaped system for activating a group of people by telephone. Using the phone tree system can spread a brief message quickly and efficiently to a large number of people.
http://www.aauw.org/issue_advocacy/phonetree.cfm

[Nordic Bill]

Thanks, tdol! Glad to receive confirmation on that.

Bill

[Tdol]

You live and learn- well, I did as I hadn't heard the term before.

[Nordic Bill]

You live and learn- well, I did as I hadn't heard the term before.

So true, tdol, and that's what I love about this website - I can assume the role of teacher or student, depending on whether I have something to offer or something to ask.

And I must say the vocabulary questions and answers are proving invaluable, especially since a good deal of these words and concepts don't even exist in dictionaries!