10 Google Voice Tricks That Will Rock Your Phone!

Phones are remnants of the analog world. Google Voice adds your phone into the cloud! If you aren't currently using  Google Voice, I would recommend my my previous post for a basic overview of the service. If are a user, here are 10 tips to rock your phone! If you have other creative ways that you have used Google Voice, please leave a comment!

1. Call from Gmail. Connect your Google Chat account to Google Voice. You will be able to send and receive calls and SMS messages from within Gmail. To do so, login to Google Voice, click "settings" and check the box labeled as "Google Chat"
2. Block Annoying People. Someone calling that you would prefer not to talk to? Log in to your account, find their latest call, select the "more" pull down and click "block caller". From this point forward, whenever this number calls, they will receive a "number disconnected" message. Brilliant!
3. Reach Out with Voice! Create a custom calling widget such as the one below. Don't be shy, click and try it out! When you type in your phone number Google will call your phone and connect you to me. Your call will be automatically sent to my voice mail. Note that I have recorded a special message that only those who use this widget to call me will hear. 
 

**Update: It appears that there are some browser compatibility issues with the call widget. I have been unable to view the widget when viewing my blog through Firefox. Chrome, Safari, and Explorer seem to work without issue.***

4. Screen your calls. Remember old-school answering machines? My family used to listen to the message before we picked up the call. You can do the same thing! When a call comes in when I am within Gmail I can click "screen" to listen to the message being left for me. If I want, I can pick up the call.

5. Custom Greeting. Google Voice integrates with your Gmail address book. Groups that you create in Gmail are populated into your Google Voice address book. You can then easily create filters to, say always send calls from the office to voice mail after 5pm or set calls from your immediate family to ring all of your phones simultaneously. 

6. Free Calls! If you have a calling plan that includes "family circle" or "my fav's" in which you can specify frequently dialed numbers which are free to call, you can get unlimited calling for free. Simply set your Google Voice number as one of your free numbers and dial from within your Gmail account, Google voice account, or by using the Google Voice iphone app. Your service provider will only see your Google voice number, not the number of the person who you are trying to call, giving you unlimited free minutes.

7. Personal Transcriptionist. On the road? Need to compose an email? Use Google Voice as your personal transcriptionist.  Call yourself and start talking. Your voice mail message will be transcribed an emailed to you. Copy and paste the text, correct the errors in the transcription, and you're done!

8. Podcaster! Use Google Voice to create audio podcasts. Simply call yourself and leave a voice mail message. Later, log in to your account, find the message, click "more" and then "download message." An mp3 file will be created that you can then add to iTunes or any other podcasting service. Keep in mind that the recording will be dependent upon the clarity of the call connection and the quality of your cell phone. I would recommend using a headset when recording calls. 

9. Don't Forget! Add notes to a voice mail indicating follow up tasks, reminders, etc. This would be a great feature for anyone in sales who makes a lot of phone calls. Keep track of when you called, who you talked to and what you promised.

10. Never miss a call! A lot of your friends/family already have your mobile or work numbers. If you don't pick up when they call one of your personal lines, you can tell Google Voice to forward the call to all of your other phones. For example, your mom calls your cell phone which you left at home. When you don't answer it first rings your office phone before sending mom to your voice mail. To enable this feature login to your Google Voice account and go to setting --> phones --> select "edit" on the number you wish to enable this feature for --> "show advanced settings" --> "forwarding options" (at the very bottom). 

Add your Phone to the Cloud with Google Voice!

Telephony has been around for a long time, however despite advancements in some areas (cordless phones, cell phones, voicemail etc), some aspects have remained archaic:

• We frequently need to call multiple numbers and leave multiple messages before getting locating the person we need to talk with.
• Voice mail is tied to each phone number. I have to check my voice mail on each of my phones. 
• My phone isn't smart. It treats every call equally. If I get a lot of calls, its difficult to sort out what's important from what is annoying. 
• There is no connection between my phone and my email. 
• My phone is a physical object therefore if I leave it or forget it, I can't use it. 

The engineers at Google noted many of these same things and came up with a solution: Google Voice.

I have been using Google Voice for a year now and have come to love some of the advanced, innovative features that it offers.

In a nutshell, Google Voice helps individuals take control of their telephony by providing a free, US based telephone number which connects all of their phones (work, home, cell, etc). Give out your Google Voice number and it will ring the phone of your choice based on criteria such as the time of day or the caller.

Google Voice can also send you the text of a voice mail message to you via email. You can read the voice mail or play the audio from it. There are lots of times when I don't have time to check my voice mail messages that I have appreciated the ability to quickly scan the transcription to determine if there is an issue that needs my immediate attention.

The transcription of voice to text was pretty rough at first, but it has become remarkably more reliable since its inception. Here's a transcribed message that was sent to me on December 8, 2009:

Early voice mail transcription from Google Voice. Click to view larger image.

This is a voice mail that I received exactly one year later on December 8, 2010.

One year later: click to enlarge.

Still not perfect, but much better. At least you can understand general purpose of the message. Note that the words in grey are those that were unable to be reliably translated.

Logging into your Google Voice account (something I do infrequently) allows you to see a listing of previous calls (received and missed) and voice mails. You can archive or delete messages  as you wish. Within your Google Voice account you can also send free sms messages to any phone number.

Here is how I am personally using the Google Voice service:

My business cards, email signature, social media profiles all list my Google Voice number (which happens to spell out my last name!). Any time someone calls this number, the call is relayed to both my cell phone and to Gmail account. I have connected Google Voice to my Gmail account using the recently released "call any number" feature. This enables me to place and received calls using my computer (conserving my cell minutes!). I receive transcripts of voice mails in my email account and on my iPod touch.

I use the recently released Google Voice app on my ipod touch to send sms messages, check my voice mail, and "auto dial" my cell phone. It is not possible to make direct calls on my ipod touch using this app. Instead, when I click "call" the application dials my cell phone and then connects me to the person that I have dialed.

In education, Google Voice has some great potential uses:

• Preserve your privacy be creating a Google Voice number to give out to your students and their families. At the end of the year, de-activate the account. 
• ESL students or students in speech therapy can use Google Voice to practice their diction. The more accurately they pronounce the English words, the more likely the transcription program will correctly transcribe it into text!
• Use Google voice to record mp3 files that you can share with students. You could even read books aloud for students who struggle with reading. 
• Include a "call me" widget in your blog or wiki for students to leave questions for you. Calls can be sent directly to voice mail and you can respond to them as you wish. 
• Record custom greetings for parents. You could even leave a recorded message each week updating them on classroom events and important dates. 

If you're intrigued, I would encourage you to view my other post" "10 Google Voice Tricks that will Rock your Phone." 

Google Moderator: Cast Your Vote!

At their Mountain View, CA campus, Google hosts regular "Tech Talks" in which Googlers or other invited guests speak on various topics for the general benefit of the Google Community. Question and Answer sessions were a bit disorganized so Google engineers Dave S. Young, Taliver Heath, and Colby Ranger decided to spend their 20% time creating a tools to manage questions during these session. The result, was Google Moderator.

The simple web-based application allows users to ask questions and vote on existing questions. The most popular questions move to the top. The product worked so well for the tech talks that Google launched it internally to help organize meetings. Not only can users submit questions, they can also submit ideas or suggestions which are displayed for others to vote up or down. Those who submit questions also have the option of including a short YouTube video. In April of 2008 Moderator was made publicly available.

This is an example of a moderator idea on which users can vote.

This form of interaction is often termed "crowdsourcing." The premise is that the collective intelligence of the group is greater than any one individual and by allowing the group to vote ideas up or down, the cream will rise to the top. The larger the group the more ideas are shared and the more reliable the group decision is.

Vote!

At Google events I have attended Moderator has been used to determine what topics will be covered during the event. I have both submitted and voted on ideas. Interacting with the agenda of a conference in this way is very empowering and provides each attendee with a sense that they are contributing to the direction of the group.

The most public display of Google Moderator came during the 2008 elections when then candidate Obama used Google Moderator in his "Open for Questions" campaign. Over 4.7 million votes were cast.

Moderator on the iPad.

There are a few nice features which make Moderator especially well suited for the classroom including the option choose whether responses can be submitted anonymously and the ability to flag inappropriate suggestions/ideas. If you don't have computers in your classroom (like me) students can access and vote on ideas from home, from the computer lab before or after school, or on their mobile device. Yes, Moderator works on the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad! 

One thing that I don't like about Moderator is that you must have a Google Account in order to submit or vote on ideas. Even if you setup your series as allowing anonymous submissions, users must be logged in to submit votes or ideas. If you are a Google Apps school, this isn't a big idea as your students will already have accounts that will work however if you are not, managing the logins for a class so that they can use moderator is daunting.

Despite this challenge, there are some great applications for moderator in education. Instead of posting these ideas below, I've created a Moderator "series" in which you can view my ideas, vote on them, ad add your own. We'll see which one is the most popular! Don't be shy, vote and submit ideas!

Click to view and vote on ideas!

STEM Collaboration Webinar Recording

This week I had the privilege of leading the December installment of the Google Apps for Education professional development webinar. People from around the world joined me for a discussion of the importance of teaching collaborative skills to students as well as five specific projects that can be integrated into STEM classrooms.

Resources related to my presentation can be found on the companion website that I have created to share my links and examples. 

If you were unable to join, a full recording of the webinar is available below as well as Q&A transcript. You can view the full list of Google Apps for Education PD webinars by clicking here.

Review: Google Body Browser

Google's overarching corporate goal is to "organize the world's information." This vision drives all of their product development and is undoubtedly the foundation of their latest addition-- Google Body Browser. Slapped with a Beta tag (it wouldn't be Google if it didn't say Beta!), the Body Browser is a bit rough, but has tremendous potential.

The Google engineers responsible for Body Browser borrowed a few parts from other Google products. Regular users of Google Maps or Google Earth will immediately recognize the navigational interface. Searching for an organ reveals instant results a-la Google Instant technology.

Google Body Browser was revealed at a technology conference (WebGL Camp) on December 15. It was released publicly on December 16 as a Google Lab project.

Navigating and using Google Body Browser is so simple that no explanation is needed. If you're ready to try, make sure you have a web browser that includes WebGL (an HTML element that enables 3D graphics without using Flash or other 3rd party plugins). Browsers that will work include Google Chrome 9, FireFox 4.0/b1. Mac  users running OS X 10.6 or later can run Body Browser in Safari after enabling WebGL.

If you don't have the correct browser version, you will see the banner image posted above. If your browser is compatible, you'll jump right into exploring the human body!

As an anatomy and biology teacher I'm excited about using Body Browser in the classroom. It will certainly make learning human anatomy more interesting and interactive. Here are some ideas for using Body Browser in your classroom:

• Teach muscle attachments (a difficult concept) with the muscular and skeletal layers turned on.
• Teach the importance of anatomical naming conventions by exploring related structures (a good example is the clavical, subclavian muscle, subclavian vein and subclavian artery)
• If you have an interactive whiteboard, play "pig" or "horse" as a class, asking each student to name a structure and then challenge the next student to name a different structure. 
• Compare and contrast the mapping of veins and arteries.

I also have a few suggestions (which I have submitted to Google) to improve Body Browser: 

• Add layer support similar to that used in Google Earth. Users content can further enhance and extend the visual exploration of the body by providing textual or multimedia information related to specific body features.  This would be a great opportunity for companies like WebMD or A.D.A.M. to leverage their existing content. 
• Include X-ray and CT scan views of the body. 
• Enable the exploration of the inner brain, not just the external hemispheres. 
• Enable exploration of the inner heart, not just the external features. 

Google Webinar Tomorrow!

December 21st, 2010 at 7:30 ET I will be leading a webinar on collaborative projects for STEM classrooms using Google Apps for Education. This is a free, 1 hour webinar. Please join the discussion!

To register for the webinar, click here.
For a glimpse at the topics and tools that will be covered, click here.

See you tomorrow night!