It’s always important to meet students where they’re at – even if that means communicating to them in a means outside of email. Text messaging tends to be the next best thing! Here are a few tools that could aid in that.
Google Voice
Google Voice can be used on your laptop browser or smartphone devices (Android and iPhone compatible). It provides you a non-personal phone number where you can reach out to your students through their cell phone. You can even call them if that’s your preference. It includes Google Calendar integration, capable of functioning with screen readers, voicemail transcription, unlimited SMS in the US, and more!
Another key element that is always useful to have is you can export your messaging logs from Voice. So you will always have a recod of the conversations you and your students had regarding your course work.
If you’re interested in knowing how to get started, check out the link Getting Started with Google Voice. There are also training material that within that link will help you familiarize yourself with the tool.
Remind Application
Remind can be little more campus-focused as it can integrate within your Moodle course! Remind is also available as a mobile application for smartphones, similar to Google Voice.
Personal cell phone numbers, email addresses, and other personal contact information remains private. All messages are sent through Remind phone numbers and email addresses, not your personal contact details.
Remind messages cannot be edited or deleted once they’ve been sent. A clear and accurate record of the messages sent helps keep communication more safe. Although participants can delete texts from their phones, these messages will still appear in their Remind message history.
Check out their 3 Steps to Getting Started page for more information!