Google Voice

When I first moved to Texas in June of 2011, I spent the entire summer simultaneously searching for ways to improve my classroom instruction/management and for a classroom and school of my own here. I was pretty bummed when I didn't get a permanent job, and I felt sad because I knew there was a possibility I might forget all the great ideas I'd found over the summer. (Another reason this blog has been a blessing for me!)

By the middle of September, I knew my chances for getting a class for the 2011-2012 school year were slim. So I decided to set up a tutoring business here to help myself stay in education and make a little extra money while substituting for the next year. I set to work, designing a tutoring website, drawing up client contracts, and designing ads. As I started designing the website and advertisement fliers, I found a problem: I needed a way for potential clients to get in contact with me, but I didn't necessarily want to make my personal cell phone number available to the entire world.

I'd done some research over Google Voice over the summer and had made plans to use it in my classroom. Instead, I ended up using it with my tutoring business, and it has worked quite well so far!

The concept of Google Voice is that you get an extra (and free) phone number from which to make (and receive) phone calls and send text messages. I think of it as a call and text-message forwarding service. Your Google Voice phone number hooks up to a phone that you already have, so there's no purchasing anything extra to make this work. My husband and I don't have a house phone, so I connected the Google Voice number to my cell phone. I carry my iPhone with me virtually everywhere I go, so I can answer "regular" calls and text messages, as well as those coming to my Google Voice number, at any time.

Why might this be useful in the classroom?

1. Students and parents can contact you with questions or concerns they may have about their grade, a project/assignment, or upcoming events at any time. I realize this can be a little intimidating and that family and "me" time is definitely important! Mrs. Math (my friend over at Numbers Rule My World) implemented Google Voice in her classroom with strict calling-time rules. She told me she once had a student violate that curfew request, but she ignored the late text, addressed the problem the next day, and hasn't had a problem with it since then. Most students and parents do understand that you are a real person with a family and social life outside of school, and I think the majority of people are willing to respect any boundaries you set up because you're doing them a favor by making yourself available outside of school hours!
2. Most of the people I know would rather text than call. (In my completely unofficial observations, I would venture to say that the younger the person, the more that individual prefers to text rather than call.) Google Voice makes it possible for students to "text" you after school or on weekends when they have questions. This works similarly to the mobile version of Twitter (here's a whole list of posts I've written about Twitter in the classroom), but all exchanges are private. This would work especially well if a student was inquiring about his/her grade.
3. You do not have to give your real phone number to students or parents, so your information is still private. 
4. You can trash your Google Voice number and replace it with a new one at any time. This might be helpful if someone started abusing the privilege of having your information by calling/texting excessively or even pranking you....
5. Google will transcribe your voicemails and send them to your Google Voice inbox (free when you sign up for Google Voice services) so you have a written record of communication. 
6. If you connect your Google Voice number to your cell phone, you can take screen shots of all text message conversations and e-mail them to your school e-mail address, in case there's ever any question as to the content of your conversations. 
7. Have you ever needed to call a student's parent? (Duh, right?) Well, you either call from a personal phone and risk them having your personal and private phone information, OR you stay at school and call from a landline there, right? NOT ANYMORE! If you're using Google Voice, you make the phone call on your way home while you're stuck in traffic, and the family will be none-the-wiser about your personal information.

How do I set it up?

You have to have a Google account, but if you have a gmail address, a Blogger blog, or a YouTube account, you already have one! If you're not a member of one of those sites, signing up is fairly quick and easy. Besides, you get to take advantage of so many of Google's features that you really should have a Google account, anyway (in my humble opinion)!

Once you sign up or sign in, you have to access the Google Voice website. I usually just Google-search the term. But I've included the link various times in this blog post for you -- click on any of them to be taken directly to the website you need! :)

Users are directed to choose their own phone number. You can choose anything you'd like, so long as it's not taken by another user. This worked great for me, since I moved here with an Oklahoma area code and had no plans of changing my phone number after 10+ years! I wanted clients to be able to call a local number -- as not all phone-service providers feature free long-distance calling yet -- and I was able to choose a number in the local area code.

After you pick which phone number you'd like to call your own, you get to choose which phone you will connect your calls to. As stated above, I chose my cell phone.

Finally, confirm your number with Google. To do this, Google will give you a confirmation code (I believe it's a 5-digit number?) on the computer screen as soon as you pick your phone number and which of your personal phones you'd like to direct your calls. Afterwards, Google gives you a call. When you pick up the phone, you're instructed to enter the confirmation code with your phone's keypad. It's super simple!

I'm not entirely positive as to how this works on a house phone, since I've got mine set up to forward to my iPhone. But let me tell you what I do know:

I almost immediately downloaded the free Google Voice iTunes app for my iPhone. When I launch it and log in, I see several screens that look almost the same as the regular call screens in my iPhone "phone" app. I can access any of the online Google inbox options via my iPhone:

I can also text and call phone numbers (already in my address book or not) directly from the Google Voice app. This ensures that the recipient will see my Google Voice number on their screen -- not my personal cell phone number.

At first, I have to admit that I was a little confused by the whole ordeal. I used my husband's iPhone to call my new Google Voice number to test it out. Google gives you the option to use "Click2Call," which is basically like a screening service for your incoming Google Voice phone calls. Via the instructions on the Google Voice set-up page, I had recorded a message with my tutoring business's name. When I enabled "Click2Call," callers would hear my recorded message while Google called me. Callers were instructed to state their name and reason for calling; Google would play this for me and allow me to accept or reject the call. That portion didn't work as well as I'd hoped, so I eventually turned the "Click2Call" feature off. Now I get calls just like I would on my regular phone -- no screening. I'm OK with it, though, because I know that I could change my phone number for free at any time if things got out of hand.

Google Voice is completely free to use -- and pretty easy! It would be so simple to put this on your syllabus or classroom website so that students and their families could contact you at any time. As cliche as it sounds, communication really is key, so the more ways you can give families to communicate with you, the better!

Have you used Google Voice in your classroom before? I'd love to hear about the experience you had with it! 


If you hadn't heard of this service before, would you consider using it now? Or does the prospect of being tethered to your classroom at all hours of the day make you want to scream? Sound off in the comment box below!

Maintaining Your Classroom Library

I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to organize a classroom library -- it's just a matter of finding out what works for you, your students, and your curriculum. What is probably the most challenging part of having a classroom library, though, is maintaining it.

Whether you arrange your classroom library by reading level, genre, series, author, or another method, there still remains the question of maintaining that organization. As a teacher, you are a pulled in so many different directions all day long, so I feel that it is important to pick a classroom library management system that is quick and easy.

I have a few different options for you today that fit both above-mentioned criteria:

1. Booksource's Classroom Organizer
2. Library Thing
3. Shelfari

Now I'll explain a little bit about each one:

Booksource's Classroom Organizer

I stumbled upon Booksource's Classroom Organizer about a year ago. At that point, I was getting ready to leave my English I job (with an ever-growing classroom library). I remember being happy to find this but decided I would put off trying it until I had a classroom of my own again. I just signed up for it, so I'll be walking you through what I see:

Upon registration, I was instructed to select the school where I teach. (It reminded me a lot of SpellingCity in this regard.) I know that this is supposed to be a convenience system for students checking out my books, but I always hate when websites require you to associate yourself with a certain school. As I'm sure you've heard, I'm currently substituting for this school year until I can find a permanent classroom of my own. I don't feel that I should miss out on reviewing this classroom library management system just because I don't have an "official" school! Harrumph. I ended up picking a school that I've subbed at dozens of times this year, hoping that the admin won't mind! :)

When you register, you have to pick a username that will be visible to everyone. You also have to pick a password that allows YOU to access the settings and controls, and a password that allows students to find your classroom library in the system. Hmm... I don't know of any other classroom library that has this feature!

In the settings, you can adjust how many books students are allowed to check out at a time, and how long the check-out period is. You can also prompt students to review the book when checking it in, and you can ask them to assess the condition of the book upon check-in! That is way-cool! After you have your settings configured the way you want them to be, it's time to start adding books. You can import an Excel list of books (and export the list whenever you want).

When you're satisfied with your classroom library's selection, you can start adding students. Again, you can import the student list from Excel, for your convenience. You can assign students to certain reading groups, add a picture for easy check-out, and see a history of check-outs for each student. I love that I can track the check-out history of each student; it's important to me to see what students are reading, what genres to which they gravitate, and what levels they're reading most comfortably.

Teachers and students get different log-ins, and students are shown a review screen of the rules for borrowing from your library before they try to check out books:

I specified these rules; you can make your own!

It's very simple for a student to check out and return books. I would simply leave this screen up on the computer closest to the classroom library:

Students just click what they want to do.

After students click an option, they're prompted to enter an ISBN number or keyword. The program then searches your library to find matches. I feel like it's a pretty student-friendly interface. The only downside is that there is no help or FAQ page; I guess they think it's pretty self-explanatory. It is, but a list of tips and tricks is always helpful! Anyway, I still like the program and would definitely be willing to use it with my younger students.

Library Thing

I discovered Library Thing during my student teaching. I had already acquired several hundred books for my classroom library, so I was bound and determined to find a way to organize and manage them! (Have I mentioned that I'm a little OCD? Because I am. lol.) It took me quite a while to enter all my books into Library Thing's system, but if you have a large collection of books, it's going to require a lot of your time to set up, anyway.

Anyway, Library Thing has some cool features of its own.  It has the basics that all the other websites seem to have, but it also has some extras. For one thing, users have the ability to import books from anywhere, and to export your book list to your computer. I think that feature alone is pretty handy! I'm thinking it would be most useful at the end of the school year when I ask a student to take "inventory" of my classroom books...the student could easily highlight the books on the page and quickly figure out which books are missing. The company is working on a mobile app right now, but I read that the mobile version of their website works pretty well on iPhone's Safari. I have to love this feature, since I carry my phone with me basically 24/7.

By far, though, my favorite feature, is that Library Thing has a compatible bar code scanner that is C-H-E-A-P and A-W-E-S-O-M-E! Behold:

Library Thing's "CueCat Scanner"

The CueCat Scanner looks a little creepy, I admit (I'm not a cat fan at all), but it's only $15 and is compatible with both Mac and PC! It plugs into your computer via USB port. You can purchase a slightly more sophisticated scanner by searching the key terms "usb CCD barcode scanner" on eBay. These scanners are about $30. I know I read something awhile back about how this barcode scanner can help you "check out" your classroom library books, but I'm unable to find the specific FAQ post right now, unfortunately. Right now, all I can find are articles that tell how you can add new books to your profile by scanning them in with the scanner. :( I'm wondering, though, if you could create a custom category for "borrowed books." When the person returns the book, you just remove that category from the book's entry online. That doesn't sound as convenient as I'd hoped it would be, but it's better than nothing, right?

I think Library Thing could be used with upper elementary or secondary students.

Shelfari

I actually wrote an entire post dedicated to Shelfari a while back (read the whole post by clicking here), but I originally just mentioned it as a way to create online book reports and reviews that were a bit more exciting and encouraged more discussion than a regular book report.

But you can also use Shelfari to track who is borrowing your books at any given time, which would be like a "check-out" feature for your books.

You have to add books to your shelf one-by-one, and you indicate if you own the book or are borrowing it. As a teacher trying to organize your classroom library, you'd obviously just click "own" on every book. (By the way, can I just say that I love that you can "tag" your books to put them in multiple classifications? See, I'm always confused as to how teachers can group their books by genre. I think it's a lofty goal, but I'm the person who always says, "well...it could be x genre or it could be z genre, too..." and I never could decide if I should go with genre x or genre z. With Shelfari, you don't have to decide, since you can classify your books however you want and in as many categories as you want. Yay!) Once you have your books on your "shelf," it might look something like this:

My shelf

 When you loan a book to someone, you just click on the book you need to loan. Go to the "edition" details. At the bottom of that page, you can click "loaned to a friend" and insert the proper details (including the person's name, the date loaned, and even a due date like a real library!).

Showing that I loaned this book to "Super Teacher." :)

 When the person returns your book, you just uncheck the "loan" box, save, and everything is back to normal. I haven't used this feature extensively enough to figure out if you get reminders about book loans -- I would assume not. It also seems as though you would have to physically click on every single book to figure out which were on loan, which is definitely a con. I just sent their Customer Service a question about that, so hopefully I'll have some more information for you shortly! Anyway, it's a quick and easy way to track your books. And if you buy the books from Amazon, they're automatically added to your shelf, so that's just one less thing you have to do!

Shelfari is a sister site of Amazon, so if you're already a member of Amazon, there isn't a lot else you have to do before you begin using Shelfari, as you can use your Amazon log in to access Shelfari!

As stated in my earlier post over Shelfari, this program reminds me of a social networking site for books. It's for this reason that I feel Shelfari would fit in best in a secondary classroom. 

Which of these do you think is the best option for managing your classroom library? Do you have another, better way to track your borrowed classroom library books? I'd love to know your thoughts! Leave them in the "comments" section below. :)





P.S. After talking with some teacher-blogging buddies of mine, I heard of a few other options:

1. IntelliScanner
2. Book Collector 
3. Delicious Library

All look very appealing! I'm anxious to know your take on this -- which of these do you think is the best?

P.P.S. Ben, from Classroom Library Company, contacted me to tell me about his company's iDevice app for managing your classroom library: Book Retriever. It only costs $.99, and it looks like a neat (and useful) app! 

Printing Your Blog(s)

Erin, over at Kleinspiration (and a fellow Teaching Blog Traffic School member), blogged about this really neat site called Blog2Print awhile back. (Check out her original post by clicking here.) I recently decided to check it out, per her suggestion, and I couldn't resist blogging this same topic myself!

Blog2Print is a website that takes posts from your blog and uses them to create a book! You can choose a hardcover or soft cover book, or you could choose to purchase an eBook (how fancy is that?!) that you could upload to your mobile reader or even print for cheaper at home. There are a ton of customization options, including the ability to pick your covers, title the book appropriately, write a dedication page, and choose which posts you'd like to include. You can even choose to print the comments! I was surprised by how many options there are.

Obviously, this website can be a real gem for someone who runs a personal or family blog. I plan on printing our family blog year by year to create a collection of books over time. The internet is great, but there's nothing quite like having a physical copy of all of your writing!

So how would the ability to print my blog(s) help in my classroom? 

I've mentioned before that I love to blog with students. But there are some downsides to having students write blog posts online instead of writing stories and other pieces on regular paper. The main cons I see are:

1. Students never get to see their work "published" in an actual book format. While online posts are great, there is something about holding a physical copy of your writing that just makes you feel so accomplished and like a "real" author. 
2. At the end of the year, what happens to all that hard work? Unless students have individual log-ins, they can't maintain the blog after the school year has ended. For instance, during my first year of blogging with students, I lived in a small town where internet access was not abundant in students' homes. So instead of asking students to find internet access and write blog posts on their own time, I wrote blog posts that asked insightful questions about what we were doing in class (or sometimes asked them to dig a little deeper into current material) and asked students to comment. This was an assignment each month. Most blogs I wrote asked open-ended questions and students were asked to answer the question and defend their answer, but some posts asked students to do something, such as the time I asked them to write a sensory poem. This worked well because writing comments didn't require as much time as writing an entire blog post would have. It was easier for students to find internet access during the little free moments at school than it was for them to carve out enough time to write an entire post themselves. But at the end of the year, I needed to clear all blog posts so that I could allow my next class to start fresh (since I planned on asking almost the same questions the next year). I hated erasing all of their hard work, but I didn't want to create an entirely new blog year after year. 

To fix the problems stated above, you could easily create a physical book (or eBook)! I think a great end-of-year gift for students would be a "published" copy of all of their blog posts throughout the year. That way, parents and students alike could keep those memories forever, and students could see how far their writing has progressed in just one short year.

If you were working on a tighter budget, you could always just purchase an eBook. Then, you could either print your own copies, or you could upload it to a {password protected} page on your classroom website. You could give students and parents access to that page to allow them to see their posts in a book format.

Whether you choose to print physical copies of the blog posts or you just download the eBook, you could always use the book as an example for future students. Let next year's students understand their goal and how neat it will feel to be a "real, published author" by the end of the year.

Another idea is to ask students to write blog posts that review various books they read throughout the year. At the end of the year, you could create a "real" book out of all those reviews they wrote. I think that would be a really cool resource to have in your class library.

An idea that Erin had was to use Blog2Print to make a book of all your teacher-blog posts. It would be a great thing to take to interviews, open-house/meet-the-teacher night, or to seminars where you are presenting!

I'd also like to mention that there is another blog-printing service called Blurb that works beautifully. I've used Blurb in the past to create a hardcover copy of my family's personal blog. The options, interface, and pricing are similar to those of Blog2Print. I can personally vouch that Blurb has fairly quick printing options and is very easy to use.

What do you think of printing your (or your students') blog posts into a "real" book format? Have you done it in the past or is it something you'd be willing to try?




P.S. I just found this website called BlogBooker that turns your blog into a PDF file for FREE!! Of course, if you wanted a hard-copy, you'd still have to print it and bind it on your own, but saving it as a PDF would be a great way to display save a copy of class blogs (if you have to delete them at the end of the year) or post them to a class website. I LOVE FREE STUFF! :)