After watching this video and doing some reading about Google Voice, I am asking myself, Why does my school not use this? Instead of teachers giving out their home or cell phone numbers for parents to contact after school hours, teacher would simply give out their Google Voice number. This would help to eliminate problems and give educators privacy when it is needed outside of school.
Most of the time with voicemail, you can only get to your account by using your phone by dialing a certain number. Google Voice would allow you to retrieve voicemail on any phone. Users are also able to set times when they are available to accept calls and set a message when they are unavailable. One of the most interesting features is that which takes a voicemail and converts it to a text which would be emailed to you.
The more that I read about Google Voice the more interested I am in trying a program of this sort to be able to see all of the possibilities.
http://www.google.com/googlevoice/landing/index.html
Google Voice does seem like something my school district should also invest in. We have had several incidents when teachers have given out their personal contact information and it turned around and bite them in the butt. Our administration has access to a mass voicemail messaging technology that allows them to send messages to parents and staff. Sadly teachers don’t have access to it.
ReplyDeleteGoogle Voice would not only help us with our home/school communication efforts, which would help our students in the long run but it would also give teachers their much need privacy.