New Phone: 799-ROER

Got a new phone number today. I'm now using Google Voice, an application provided by the omnipotent Google. Basically, you sign up and pick a phone number (its a local 616 area code) and you can have it forward any calls to that number to any of several phones you have. So I have two phone numbers now -- my personal number and this new (616) 799-ROER.

What's the point?

Well, the new number will be what I give out to my students and parents this coming school year. It keeps my work and personal lives a little more separate, even though they all come to one phone (the only one I have). You can change your availability to each phone as well - so I can say that I'm unavailable for work, and those phone calls will go straight to voicemail.

Voicemails are super sweet -- when you leave a message on 799-ROER, it sends me a text message and an email OF YOUR MESSAGE! It will translate the spoken words into written words -- here's one from carrie earlier today:

It mistranslated a little... "And he says hi" is actually Abby says hi. Higher earlier is "hi earlier." Not sure what "So in the You need bye bye" was -- but I can listen to it if I click on the play button.

I got that as a text, but it's also obviously visible from my computer -- where it is STORED. and that is the power of Google voice - these interactions are stored in a sortable database. That's why educators can use them -- it's a great way to keep track of and log conversations with parents.

Tim and I sent a handful of texts back and forth -- and they are all combined into one chunk above because they were all one conversation.

Anyway, thought you might want to know why I got a new phone number. But the old still works too.