Using Voicemail As a Teaching Tool
Q. What
are some examples of creative and cost-effective uses of technology that
teachers have developed?
Voicemail has
been an increasingly important communication tool for schools, useful in
emergency contacts such as school closing alerts, digital messaging, homework
notification, and student and teacher absenteeism purposes.
But a small,
private K-12 school in Baton Rouge, La., has found a unique, educational use
for voicemail as well, that has helped in more ways than one.
Teachers at the
Episcopal School there still do not have telephones in their classrooms. But
the administration wanted to give them immediate access to their voicemail messages
throughout the school day.
Previously, they
had to wait in line in the teacher's lounge to check their phone messages, or a
parent would have to go through the school secretary to get a message to a
teacher. That wasn't the best communication procedure, especially since it
interrupted the secretary throughout the day, and annoyed parents and others if
there were urgent messages from parents or co-workers waiting for so many hours
in the voice mailbox.
But having access
to a telephone in the classroom could be disruptive.
Instead, the
school used a unified messaging system called CallXpress, that allows any kind
of messages - voice, email and fax - to be available, silently, on the
teacher's classroom computer.
Now, a teacher can send homework
immediately via fax or email to a parent who has just called in on behalf of a
sick child, instead of waiting until the child returns to school or making the
parent drive to the school to pick up the homework.
And the
teacher can confirm a parent's messages throughout the day, such as
authorization for their child to go home after school with another child.
Best of
all, the school's foreign language teachers have found a unique application for
CallXpress. Each language teacher is assigned 10 message boxes to record
dialogue or vocabulary words for the students. The students can call the
number, listen to the messages, and then respond with their answers by voicemail.
Since
listening to words in a foreign language is a crucial way to learn that
language, the use of voicemail is an intelligent innovation.
Homework: Read
the whole story on:
www.avst.com/case_study/Episcopal_School_Reduces_Strain_on_Voice_Mail_with_AVST_CallXpress.asp