The TWAIN blog

So tonight we had a board meeting and my thoughts wandered a bit. I was thinking about Google Voice and how to apply it for use in schools but I wonder how possible these ideas seem. Where else to post ideas and (hopefully) get feedback than this blog??

1. Meetings – A presentation tonight on Special Education referred to how the ARD meetings can be audio recorded and then give the participants a tape copy of the meeting. Now this is a district that serves a community that may not have Internet or even computer access in the home. So I can see why tape would be a necessary requirement. But what if Google Voice could record and transcribe the message of the meeting? Do you need audio of the entire meeting or could a summary at the end be the recorded message? I mean, how many people actually listen to the entire taped archive of the meeting? Is this something to listen to in my car while driving?

What if at the end of the ARD process meeting, the summary and major points were dictated via Google Voice. GV then transcribes the message and mails it. I know the tech isn’t there yet for perfect transcription but it’s pretty good. Especially if the voice sending the message is clear and speaking slowly as such a summary could be. A meeting itself may have too many voices going on at once and that could cause problems.

Apply this to any meeting and you can have a transcribed summary in your inbox before you get back to your desk?!

Actually, if you have an iPhone with 3.0 installed and VoiceRecorder, you can record the entire conversation and email it as an attachment. It might be too big of a file so I don’t see the point of archiving an entire conversation. But again, summarize and points of agreement by all in the group could be a good start. How about recording board meetings? I wish it could transcribe all that!

Perhaps in the future (and I know this is in development), the system will achieve voice recognition and tagging capability so that archived sound bytes are searchable….

Yep…it’s coming!

2. Security and Crisis Management – If I programmed a GV account to be the one number to contact all principals, security, and maintenance folk who needed to be in the loop should a crisis occur; then the system should contact all these people via email, text, and/or phone to any of their phones we have in the system. One call. One number. One message. Information sent instantly to all stakeholders who need it and sent to all their message systems at the same time. Seems like something to consider, right?

3. Work Orders – Our technology office could have the one number be our WO contact system for requests. I wonder if I could create GV account and then embed the phone badge on our website. If anyone is experiencing a technology emergency, they can call the one number and leave a message which is transcribed to all of our accounts at the same time. If anyone is in the local area, they can take care of the request. The system then archives all the requests as messages so we can still track them as work orders. Do you think this would work (or should)?

So…whaddya think? Possible? Impossible? Too much of a stretch? Too late for me to be up???

I should be sleeping or at least reading my nightstand book to get me into sleep mode. I have a workout method of getting up at 4:45 and to the gym by 5:00am.

But…I can’t stop working in Google Voice.

I love it.

And I don’t want to waste time talking about its features. There’s a video for that on Google’s page.

I do want to talk about use of this tool in our schools. I kind of posted a brief note on Twitter as I was reverse-engineering one problem and trying to fill the holes using Voice. The problem is district communications in emergencies. How can you contact all the major stake-holders as quickly and easily as possible?

You can Twitter or Plurk, I guess.
You can pay a yearly subscription to an SMS product that will do this via text message, email, and voice.

But can you setup Google Voice to serve as the one number to call?

Anyone else using GV yet? I would be interested to see if you have an idea for its use in your district?

I am considering adding the number to my signature in the district email. Let all staff have a number that can reach me?? That’s crazy and foolish!!

Not really. I don’t have to answer it and the messages are relayed via email. It is simply another method of receiving text messages.

Will it interfere with my time at home? Only if I don’t take advantage of the features that allow me to restrict times when the phone will ring vs. times the message goes directly to text.

And not only does it record voice messages but I can also record an entire conversation….which is converted to text and archived!

Makes me wonder with Google Chat and Google Voice (and soon to be Wave and other nice things); why I should be investigating Unified Voice Message systems and IP phones. We aren’t getting them for every classroom due to cost. But….with these types of tools, do IP phones and those systems start to become irrelevant?

Just thoughts. Anyone have ideas or comments?

I say at least get on Google Voice. It is a neat tool for personal use but I really wonder if it can be used for professional resources as well.

On July 23, Today’s Big Thing website shared a video in their Technology Category that showed how Across Air is developing an Augmented Reality iPhone app.

The app works with the camera on the phone to enhance the view of the environment by providing additional and clickable information. It is really augmenting reality.

I found another company called “Layar” and they are also creating an Augmented Reality application for mobile phones. See video:

How cool could this be for future field trips?

I am attempting something different with our Staff Acceptable Use Policy this year. I actually changed the AUP to include items that weren’t in the last version. By doing this, I added 3 pages to the old one which increased the print load. And that is rough when you are trying to go paperless. Printing for all staff would be 8 pages multiplied by the near 700 staff. We all know that only one page is important – the signature page. Most people don’t keep that AUP after they sign it so it is a complete waste of a resource our campuses need: Paper.

Yesterday, I converted the 8 page document into a Google Presentation and have it linked off our KISD Instructional Technology website: http://www.kerrvilleisd.net/pages/Instructional_Technology – Scroll down to Staff Acceptable Use Policy to see version links.

I kept the Paper Version that includes the paper document and the signature page. But I then used Google Forms to create a place for staff to create a “digital PIN” that combines birth year and social security numbers (not in sequence) to create the number. This number will serve as the digital signature by the staff for the AUP.

Instructions on the site are clear: You can use the paper version or the digital version but you must complete one signature form to show that the policy was read. The policy will remain on the website for the duration of the school year so that it can be referred to as needed.

I also changed the “Confirmation” page when users hit Submit on the Digital Version that thanks them because “You personally have saved 8 pages of paper by filling out this digital signature page”. I think it is valuable to let people know that by using digital forms they are saving resources. It also includes information to direct staff to the Instructional Technology website where our summer training materials are located if they missed.

All this being said, I hope it works! I would hate to get a message from someone later that by doing it this way, I violated some TEA regulation or something. I wonder if others are doing something similar?? They probably are with their Moodles, Adobe Connects, or something out there that takes time or money. We have Adobe Connect but I am using it for some other projects but I really want to model technology resources that teachers can use in their classrooms with little to no additional support.

The method I used was completely free if anyone out there wants to try it in their own district. You can convert your paper document to PDF using either Adobe Acrobat Pro (costs money) or Cute PDF (free version online). The Google Presentation and Form were done for free using Google Documents. And technically, you can even embed the survey into an email you send to staff if you needed that function.

If you check it out, let me know what you think and if you have something similar for your staff.