Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Allow Students to Send Text Messages And Use Email to Reply

I think we all want to enable student communication with professors.  We want to enable as much communication as possible.  For example, I'd like to allow students to send me text messages, since that's the easiest way they know to communicate (currently).

However, there are a couple of problems. (1) I really don't want to give students my cell phone number. (2) I hate replying because I hate typing text messages on that little keyboard on my phone.  (3) I really don't want my cell phone to bug me all the time.

The solution is Google Voice.  Google Voice is a free service from Google that gives you a phone number and allows you to direct calls you get to that number to any other phone number you have.  People use this to track them during a day.  By allowing Google Voice to (even automatically) switch forwarding phone numbers, you can give out your Google Voice number and get calls at your office, on your cell phone, or at home -- or all at the same time!

While this forwarding functionality might be of limited use for you (it's not very useful for me), there are several other very useful functions Google Voice provides.  One is that text messages to your Google Voice number can go to the email address you register with the service.  And replying through email sends a text message back to the original sender.  All the problems above are solved: I tell students to text my Google Voice number but I also tell them it goes to my email.  And I can use a nice big computer keyboard to reply.

So go to http://www.google.com/voice and apply for a phone number.  You will need to set up a Google Account if you have not already (I used my 1Hope email address).   Last time I checked, all the local numbers were gone, but text messages can go to any number.  So pick a phone number in your favorite area code.

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