Google Voice in the Classroom

Have you ever considered setting up a homework helpline? Perhaps you're chaperoning an upcoming field trip and even-though nearly every student has a cell phone you don't feel completely comfortable giving out your personal phone number. Or maybe you would like to have your students record an upcoming speech, but don't have any recording devices in your classroom. Have no fear Google Voice is here!

This free service provided as part of Google Apps for Education is available for all teachers and staff to use by going to the Google Voice website. As part of your Google Voice account you will have a new phone number from which you can send and receive text messages, as well as place and receive phone calls. These text messages and phone calls can even be forwarded to another phone and are always saved in your Google Voice inbox.

 Google Voice also provides two features most other services do not - voicemail transcription and the ability to download the voicemails as MP3 files. The ability to download voicemails as a file might not seem like an obvious benefit until you think about using your Google Voice account as a recording service. For example, imagine you teach a world langage class or are working on oral language fluency. Have your students phone in a dialog. Suddenly, you have a recording of their work for assessment. These ideas and more for using Google Voice in education can be found on the Google Voice page of the NCS PD Portal. Please let me know if you have any questions.

 Joe