NEDA ANASSERI: Thank you everyone for attending. Come on in, join us for today's webinar on Google Voice. And I'm going to hand it over to Katrina Tamura from MiraCosta College. 

KATRINA TAMURA: So my name again is Katrina Tamura. I am a teacher from MiraCosta College. I teach and be ESL Department. And so normally, we have people in it in the office who contact students, and they're still doing that. But Google Voice has been a really nice way for me to be able to reach out so that it's not somebody that my students don't know contacting them. 

It's a lot more personalized. So I'm going to try to take a look at chat and question and answers. So the first thing I want to do here is to let you know about our objectives. 

So we're going to learn about devices needed to use Google Voice. We're going to learn about ways in which Google Voice can be used. We're going to learn how to create a phone number for work use. And we'll learn about texting, placing phone calls, and keeping communication logs with Google Voice. 

And we'll also discuss the benefits and possible issues that come along with using this. Hopefully, today, I can give you another tool to use that has worked for me. I know you want more privacy. I mean, that was really important to me, but I didn't know how so I experimented with Google Voice. 

If you're anything like me, you have family at home and maybe a couple of kids. And you don't really want your school messages and messages from your students coming to your cell phone. It's just, I want to maintain privacy when I'm working from home. I want to keep my lines for me and my family. 

But I also want to be able to have the freedom to contact my students and have them contact me when they need me. So you can maintain your privacy while working from home. And you don't have to use your personal phone number to communicate with students. 

And you can place calls and send texts from your computer, your cell phone, or your iPad. And you can also use headphones to keep calls private and avoid bothering others in your home. I actually had a student contact me, and she was asking me to call the police because she was being abused in her home. 

This just happened. The domestic violence is on the rise. And that was one of the things that was communicated to me. So it was, I needed to react quickly, but I didn't need my kids hearing what was going on as well. So this was really nice to have my headphones on and be dealing with that situation, and being able to help my student without bringing it into my children's ears. 

So you can also keep a record of voicemails and texts you receive while filtering out unwanted calls. I don't know if a student's ever contacted you and it's been a little inappropriate or something, but you can catch those. And it doesn't have to come appearing on your personal cell phone or through your personal number. And you can keep a record of the voicemails because it goes directly to texts. 

So it's actually, they send you a transcription of your voicemails. And texts also are sent to your emails. So there's lots of ways to keep track of what students are saying to you and when they last contacted you. And let's see here. 

So again, Google Voice can help you catch inappropriate calls. It helps me do that. And you can initiate call blocking. 

It transcribes what students say in a voicemail and emails it to you. Texts that students send you are also sent to your email. Text chain can be archived, and you can reply by mail. 

Again, this is just really useful when you're trying to keep track of when you talked to someone, when they left a voicemail for you, when they texted you. You can just check your Gmail account or whatever email account you assigned for this and it will be recorded there. So I see I have a couple of questions. So I'm going to stop right here. 

So what did I use for my graphics? I use Bunzi. And I also am using my Bitmoji to create my presentations. 

And will it be possible for you to show us how to store texts and calls? Yes, we're going to. I'm going to show you how that's done automatically. So that's really important when we're trying to not spend so-- online seems to be all the time right now. 

So this helps cut down some of the work as far as writing down when and who contacted you. Voicemails are transcribed, but what about extreme accents? I haven't had a problem with it. It's been pretty accurate so far. And of course, if you know the students or you know your student group, you kind of typically can get whatever word that they were trying to say anyway. 

And is it OK to give Bitmoji your personal information? I was put off by that. That's a personal choice. And you can also create work versions of all of these things. 

So you can keep your Bitmoji and your emails. You can make that just for work. So you're not signing up with your personal information or sharing too much of your personal information with Google for the purposes of communicating with your students or doing presentations, et cetera. 

And is it possible to link my current Google Voice to another email and not my personal email? Yes, it is. There's a setting for that. 

So let's take a look a little further into Google or to the Google Voice. So here's some things that you might be wondering right now. So another thing, the question I get is, does it cost anything? No, they're not going to charge you for signing up, not unless you want to make international calls. And at that point, they say to use WhatsApp if you're making international calls or from outside of the country. 

So this link here, if you get my presentation and an email or if you visit the 010 site. And later on, you want to see what the fees are for different international calls. You just click this link. And it will have a list of all of the calls or all of the charges for international calls. 

And do you need a Google account? Yes, you need a Google account to set this up. But like I said, make a separate one that's not associated with your family and friends and your daily communication. You can make an account that you designate specifically for using with your students or for your job. 

Do I need to use my phone number? Yes, you need to use a US phone number with forwarding capability because this is basically a call forwarding system. So it does need that capability. 

Phone calls and texts will be forwarded to your new Google Voice number. So all of the calls that you are placing start with your number, but then, it's forwarding. It appears on the recipient and as a different number. 

I'm getting a couple of questions here. It says, what is the interface between Google Voice and Google Hangouts? Google Meet, isn't free right? I'm not quite sure, but Google Voice, I believe, does a few more things. When we go into it, you'll be able to see what it looks like. 

Do I use up minutes? I think, it depends on how you're placing your call, especially if you're using it from your computer and you're just using your internet, your Wi-Fi to connect, it's not charging you anything. You're not using any minutes. You don't have to use it. You don't have to use your phone, and that's the really cool thing and my preferred way of using Google Voice. 

So can you delete the phone number they assigned to you and get another? Yes, you can switch numbers. And you can assign them to another account. You get in the settings. They do give you that capability. 

Is there a feature in Google Voice to limit what timeframe calls can come in and say not before and not after a certain time? Yes, there is. And I'm going to show you that today, I believe. 

And I have a Google account with my personal email. However, if I make a new email with my phone, with my personal email however-- wait. If I have a Google account with my personal email, if I make a new email, can the phone number I already-- be selected to be transferred to a new email? You can designate, definitely designate, which email your transcriptions are going to in which email you are using for Google Voice. 

Yes, you can change your email. You can change your number. So let me take a look. If I'm using personal phone can I block a number? Yes. 

So let me go on. I know some of you are getting confused because you're not quite sure what it looks like. So let's go into it, and then afterwards, I'll try to catch some of your questions that are coming in. They're really good questions. And I know I've asked the same ones, so you're absolutely right to be asking about that. 

So let's take a look. So what do you need? That's the biggest question here. You need an existing phone number. 

Some people have asked, do I need a cell phone number? Can it be a landline? I believe you can use a landline as well. And if it's on your cell phone, they'll or text you a code to use to set up your account. And if it's a landline, I believe, they call you and give you the access code. 

So you need an existing number for sure, and you need one of the following-- a computer with internet connection or that app on your phone or tablet. So it can be used on your iPhone, on your Android. It can be used on an iPad. 

But you don't need to use it on your phone. You don't need to use it on a tablet. You could just use it on your computer, which I'm going to say is my preferred way to use this. 

So Google accounts-- you do need a Google account. And I know some people are like, oh, I don't want to give up my privacy in that way. But like I said, I highly recommend just creating a Google account that's all for work. And then, you don't need to worry about mixing it up. 

And headphones are optional. And like I said, I think, it's a really good way to keep things private so that you're not disturbing other people in your home that you're living with. And also you're keeping those calls private, private communications between you and your students if they call you and have a question, et cetera or a personal issue like, call the police, my husband's hurting me. 

So that was a very serious matter. I'm so glad that I was in that position to call for my student like I was telling you about earlier. But also, so glad my children can't hear. 

So how do you get this? How are you going to load this into your phone or access it on your computer? For cell phones, here are the basic instructions. And these are good for both Android phones and Apple phones. 

For the Androids, I think, you do Google Play. And for iPhones, you do the app store. Either way, you find the apps, you download it, and then you open the voice app. 

And then, you open up the app Google Voice. And then, you sign into your Google account so you make that beforehand. So set up your work account, and then use that to log in. 

And then, review the terms of service and privacy policy. And then, you'll continue. And then, you'll be able to pick voice number. 

So I highly recommend picking a number that would be familiar to your student. I live in the 760 area code so I want to use that. So want to use that when I am setting up my phone number so that my students when I call them that it's not going to be like appearing to be from a different city or state or something. They do not have 1-800 numbers either. 

So just set up one that looks most familiar or you think would be most familiar to a student. So say, they could identify it as being from a local call. And so you can search by city or area code for a number. 

And then, you're going to pick the number that you want and then select. And, then tap to select that number and then that number is yours. And again, you can change all of this. You can change the number at a later time. 

But for the initial setup, this is how it goes for cell phones, iPads, Android, or Apple. And this is what it looks like. So for the phone setup and use, you're going to download the app. 

You're going to open it on your phone. And then, you'll look for it on your phone screen. And then, it looks like this is the little icon. And then, you'll sign to the Google account. Again, make a new one just for work. 

Pick a phone number that's local. And this is a big one. If you are using the same-- well, first of all, don't sync your contacts if you don't want your personal numbers mixed in with your Google contacts. 

So unless you want to use-- if you're going to be placing calls to your family and friends from a forwarded number. I don't think you want to do that. But if should you prefer to do it that way, that's fine. 

But you probably don't want to sync your personal contacts. So if you do that by accident, you can unsync them by going to the app setting on your phone. So you're just going to go to settings and then look up Google Voice. And then, it'll stay unsync or it'll have a little button there for you to turn off that feature. So I really highly recommend being aware of that and keeping track of that because you just don't want to mix it up. 

So once you're into the phone or you've downloaded, you've opened up your app, you've set up your account, and you're ready to place a call. You're going to look at your screen and you're going to press this icon to open the keypad. So this is what it looks like. You press this, and then you'll find the phone number. 

So now, you can place a call and the call will be routed through another number. And here are the icons. You'll see a phone call. And then, you'll have the contacts and text messages and voicemails. So if you get a voicemail, you'll know it by the little red mark above the voicemail symbol. 

The icons on the front page are call, contacts, text message, voicemail. And you can pick up transcripts of voicemail from here too. So if somebody sends you a voicemail, you can look on Google Voice on your phone and you'll see the transcription there. It sends as a text. 

So let me take a look. It looks like we're getting some questions here. Let me see, if I call up to a student. The phone and the Google Voice will tell the student it's from a different number. 

How does Google know I want that versus I'm calling my sister and not-- so that's why you're going to keep this different because if you're using Google Voice, it's because you don't want people to know your phone number. So like I said, don't use this to call your sister. Don't use this to call people who are waiting for your call and recognize your number. 

Start new with a separate account. And make this just the number that your students will associate with you. Don't use it for your family and friends. And Hangouts and Instant Message, let me see here. 

Is it possible to make international calls? Yes, you can. But there are costs associated with it. And I have a school account associated with Google Suite. 

Yes, so the voicemail is linked to my school email account. And I can listen to it. Yes, so you can choose whichever email account you would like to. 

Use this with initially to sign up. You need a Gmail or not a Gmail, but a Google account. So you do have to go through a Google. You do have to sign up for an account to get Google Voice. 

After that, if you'd like to, assign a different email or associate it with a different number, then you can do that. You can go to settings. And you can change all of that. 

But for the initial setup, you're going to have to use a Google account. Can I have two different Google Voice related to one phone number? I have not tried that and that is an interesting question. I'm sorry, I don't know if you could use the same one as two accounts related to the same phone number. I'm not sure how that would work. 

And can we get a copy of these instructions? Yes, I'll send them. Make these available after this webinar. And yes, like I said, keeping a separate Google account to keep the history of calls and texts that are associated with your students for the purposes of recordkeeping for your school and for possibly establishing last contact with a student. That would be a really good idea to just create one specifically for this. 

And you can have it on two devices or more whatever you can log into your Google account with. Then, you can use it on multiple devices. It will not restrict you. 

Will we get a copy of the slides and recordings? Yes. Is it free? Yes. And yes, do not pay for an app. If you go into any of your app stores and they're asking if they're charging you for this application, it's not right. 

And so let's continue. I hope I've gotten to a lot of those questions. Let's go on to the next page. Let's go with the computer instructions. 

So computer instructions here will be to go to Voice.Google.com And then, you're going to sign into your Google account. You're going to review the terms of use and privacy policies and all of that. And then, you're going to tap to continue. 

And then, you're going to search by city or area code for a number. And then, next to the number you want, click select. And then, follow the instructions. 

So the useful settings I've found when you're using your desktop, which I really prefer. I highly recommend just using this on your computer, put your headphones on, go into your Google account, your Google Voice account, and then start placing calls, texting people, sending voice emails whatever you need to do all from your computer. Then, that really frees up your phone. 

But somebody had asked earlier about the Do Not Disturb. So you can go into your account settings and you can find Do Not Disturb. And then, you can turn off message forwarding and send calls to voicemail so you can put that at a certain time. You don't want to hear from people, you can do that. And then, you can also turn it back on. 

And let's see accessibility settings. If you need some high contrast colors that's available in Google Voice. That's really important for us to care for our own eyes and how things are affecting our personal health and how I know staring at a computer screen for a long time can really do a job on your eyes. And so that might be a nice setting for anybody who is interested in more accessible settings. 

Let me check some questions here. And so are the settings for the app and the apps, general app settings? I think, what you're asking is can you set this for your whole Gmail account or just for Google Voice. And yes, sometimes it's for your general Google settings and some of it is just for Google Voice, depending. 

And just like when we were looking at the accessibility settings. Let's go back here, some of these settings are for Google Docs. And some of them are true for Google Voice. So check it when you go into settings. Look at what the setting is for. 

And how can you call if you have a landline? So if you have internet and you have a computer you can go ahead and log in to the desktop version. Just go to your desktop and open it up or to your laptop, log into Google voice, and there you go. 

You can start placing calls because you have your landline phone number associated with that account. And also, you have Wi-Fi. And in that case, they don't even need to be using your actual line. 

Can we use this to call students with WhatsApp? WhatsApp is another option if you're going to be placing calls from outside of the United States to avoid any charges. And so WhatsApp is a complement to Google Voice, but they are not used together. You use one or the other. 

And how do you change your email address? That will be in settings. So when we go to settings. I can show you that. And I can't see unsync options. So if you're on your phone and you don't want your contacts to be syncing, then you're going to go into your phone's settings-- not the Google Voice settings, but phone settings-- and then, find your apps, a list of apps. 

And then, you're going to find one of these little buttons that you can just tap it, what kind of a little blue settings. You'll tap it. Let me see if I can show you one of these right here. 

If you can see that, on your screen. It'll look just like that on your phone. So you just tap it and it unsyncs your contacts. I don't know if that's a real word, but I think it is. 

So let's see, does it work on Chromebook? It does work with it. If you can log into the internet. If you have internet access. And you can open up a browser and get to Google Voice, yes it will work. 

And I'm trying to do this using my school email account, but it is requesting a voice license from my administrator. Can you mention something about this please? So possibly if you have some sort of account that is a group account that's being paid for, maybe you can contact your school and ask them about that. 

It's possible they don't want you using it, I'm not sure. And that's error. Maybe you need some sort of permission from them or they want it all associated with one account. 

And do you need a separate phone number for each class? No, you can use the same phone number. Let's see here. 

I have Google Voice setup with my cell phone number. And I've been contacting my students. I want to open the account in my computer. Can I get the same number from my phone so my students recognize the number when I send materials from my computer? So it kind of would defeat the purpose if you're using the same number your phone number. 

Idea is to disguise your phone number so it is a unique number. And it's not associated with your personal account. So you can use the same number with different accounts or you can add your phone number with as many sites or whatever is possible. 

So let's take a look at the next one. Here's some more settings that you'll find when you get your desktop and you open up your Google Voice account. You can find your messages, calls, Do Not Disturb, and then, voicemail. 

You can set up a voicemail greeting, which is really nice. So it's very personalized. And you can have multiple greetings. And so you'll just click this button. And you can create a voicemail to greet your students. 

And so right here is my little button that I selected to get voicemail via email. So when you go into your account settings, you're going to want to make sure to select that. So that you do get the transcription sent to your email. 

And then, let Google analyze voice transcripts. I did not select that. I don't know I just feel like putting it out there for further analysis might be privacy issues. So I just selected no. But that might be helpful for people who-- they really want that accent problem fixed or something like that you're not quite sure what somebody is saying. So this might help with that. 

Analyze the voicemails and send you a more accurate account of what was said. But to date, I haven't really had a problem with that. The transcripts have been accurate. And I was able to understand them. 

So let's go to the next one. We're going to see text to email. So somebody texted me so I opened up my email account. And it says, New Text Message so this popped up. 

Student sent me a text. Katrina, teacher, good morning. I'm really sorry at the house. She's having computer problems so she couldn't connect to our Zoom, our live Zoom session. 

So that was sent to my Google Voice, but it was also sent to my text messages on my phone. And it was also sent to my email. So I got the message. 

And it's also recorded here. And it also tells me later on I can look back at when this happened and who it happened to and why they missed class. And I don't need to look back at my texts on my phone. It's all there. 

And then, we have voice to text as well. We have a voice message. So the voice message comes in, and then, it gets transcribed. So somebody called me, left a voicemail message, and then that voice message was sent to me as a text to my Google, to my cell phone. But then, it was also logged into my Gmail account. 

And also, here if I press this button right here, I could hear the voicemail. And I could read the transcription. And so this isn't ESL students. And it was pretty clear. 

I really got the understanding that somebody had called him and said that he was not registered. And he didn't know why or who called. So he was contacting me directly to find out if I could give him more personalized or more accurate information. So that's the voice to text. 

And so, oh, no, you didn't understand anything I just said. And you still don't know exactly how or what to do. There's lots of help from Google. And on this presentation slide, I've included some links to the computer for information about the computer, information for your iPhone or your iPad or your Android. 

And Google Questions are infinite. And they have so many platforms. And so I really encourage you to seek out those answers because they are there. And Google is providing those answers for you. 

So now, let's go ahead and visit my desktop so you can see what it's like to go to call or see a Google Voice from your computer. So you'll go here to Google Voice. And again, there's personal use and for business. 

And then, you're going to sign in. And I signed up as a personal account. My college doesn't have any accounts that they're using to do this, to use Google Voice so I need to make my own account. 

Now, I did make the mistake of creating an account with my personal email. Like I've been telling you don't do that, don't do that. Why? Because they know all of your personal contacts are associated. All your Gmail. 

Not from my phone, but just Gmail contacts are included on here. So it takes all of your contacts from all of the Google platforms that you're using that specific account for and it puts them into your Google Voice account. 

Now, you can take this away. There are settings that can help you with that as well. And like I said before, you could associate this number with a different account as well. But you have to do that in settings. 

And let's see here. So here's, when I log in, I see some suggestions for people to call. I see my phone pad, my number pad here. And I can type the numbers in here or enter them right here. And I can also check my voicemail. So here's voicemail. 

Here's the initial setup. So they texted this to me. And then, I also got the voice recording for it. So I'm going to play it for you. So you just click Play. 

[VOICE RECORDING PLAYBACK] 

- Welcome to Google Voice. Google Voice gives you a single phone number that rings all your phone, sends your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text. Other cool features include the ability to listen in on messages while they're being left, block unwanted callers, and make cheap international calls. We hope you enjoy using Google Voice. 

[END VOICE RECORDING PLAYBACK] 

KATRINA TAMURA: All right, so pretty clear. It's very usable. And I know what she said, and it was transcribed correctly. 

Now, up here I'm not going to show it to you because it has the student's name. But when I played his voicemail, the transcription matched up very well as well. 

So if I want to see new messages that I've gotten. So these are a lot of messages I've gotten from students. So all of those messages are kept right here. 

And you could make contacts for all these students. I didn't want to do that because I knew I would be opening this app and sharing it with you. And I didn't want to put people's names or faces or anything on here. So you can go ahead and add contacts, but mine aren't set up that way just because I didn't want to expose anybody's information. 

So you can send a new message. So if you want to send a new message, you're going to pick the person's number. So this is a text message. So you pick somebody's number. And then, down here at the bottom of the screen is where you're going to enter your actual message. 

And you can actually add images. I'm not going to click there right now in case my daughter's picture comes up or something because, again, I did what I am telling you not to do. And I set this up using an email account that I use for personal use. I recommend not doing that. 

Just set it up as a personal work email. And then, so you can type that. And then, over here is the send button. You're going to send it and how do you get to your voicemails. Those voicemails, text, and then you can place calls right here. 

This shows me the calls. And generally, when I place a call, I got a call back, but when I place a call, I receive text messages back. I'll call, leave a message, and they'll call back or they'll text me back. 

And add in over here in settings if you click on settings. So it has my Google Voice number here. And I can change it, transfer it, delete it, I have it on different web. I have it on to two devices here-- my phone and a web account. 

And let's see here, it has lots of different settings here like outgoing calls. You can use Google Voice on the web to place calls on your phone, instead of over the internet. But I recommend using the internet. That way, you avoid that and the carrier rates can apply. 

But usually, it's only being charged when there's international calls. So you can set it. Always use my phone or I don't put that because I want to use the internet to place my calls. 

And I could do anonymous caller. You can hide your caller ID, but like I was saying it's better that your students start associating your phone number with you. That's why you've created this number. But if you want to just make anonymous calls, you can put that setting on, but that kind of defeats the purpose of reaching out. 

And then, let's see. You can get alerts for missed calls. You can get screen calls. And you can hear the screen callers. You can hear the caller's name when you pick it up. 

I've done that before I had this on. And it just kind of sound like somebody is making a toll call. If you remember back in the day when you use the local public phone to call mom or dad or something and you didn't have a quarter, that's what it's going to sound like. 

It's going to sound like so and so is requesting that you pick up or something. It says the person's name, and then you can decide whether or not to accept the call or not. It said, I think, do you accept the call? You have incoming call options, record call, switch linked phone. 

So you can, if you want to change the number or the phone that this account is associated with where you're getting calls to. Here it is right here-- incoming call options. And then, show my Google Voice number as caller ID when forwarding calls. 

So when you get a call through the number, you'll see that Google Voice number instead of the caller's name number. And you can set the Do Not Disturb. I showed you that before. 

And then, you might get concerned when you see the payments-- current balance. You can add credit if you're going to be making lots of international calls or so or to places that there are charges for. But within the United States, generally, we don't have. There's no charge for it. 

And again, they do have a complete list. Calling rates-- you can look up calling rates by your country. So that's where charges start to become a problem when you're making international calls. You can you can filter your spam. And you can also review your privacy and terms of use. 

So let's see here. You have messages. So you can always use your phone to place call. We did that before. 

So we've gone through all of the account settings there. And again, if you want to see that, you can go to this little icon. Let me get my little pointer again. 

We're going to go to this icon to settings. And that's where you will find all of these options, which will make your life easier and put Google Voice to use for you. And again, let me see here. 

So let me see if the archiving-- archiving if you get a lot of text messages going here. So I go, oh, I've so many. I don't need all of these, but I don't want to delete them either because I want to be able to track, which numbers I called and who responded and all of that. 

I can just archive. So just like these groups. I went ahead and archived my message chains so that when I log in, I don't see those. I wanted to just see this group that I was making contact with. 

So let me take a look to kind of questions we've got going on. Is there a way to text some information while we are talking? That would be interesting. I haven't tried texting and talking at the same time. 

But as you can see, let's see, if you send a message, you do have the option for making phone calls is still open. And the text line is still open as well. Again, I want to just show this to you because this was confusing for some. 

This area right here is where you're going to type the name or phone number when you're texting someone. And there's all this white space. This white space is going to fill up with all your text messages. 

And you're going to type your message down here below. And you can add photos and all of that. And then, you can send using the little paper airplane symbol. So my gut feeling on that, even though I haven't personally tried it out, is that yeah, you could text it and call it the same time. 

Let's see. A lot of this, it'll be fun for you to play with it and see what works for you and see what is most beneficial. And so how do you get students the Google Voice phone number? I posted in my syllabus when I contact them. I say, this is your teacher Katrina, this is my phone number. So I state it. 

And then, they have it also. If they have caller ID, they have it there. So a lot of times, when you call a student, they'll just see a number and then they'll call it back. So that's really nice. 

So you can post it in your syllabus. You can give it to the front office of your school and say if students are trying to contact me, please have them use this number. It's a Google Voice number. 

Can I send a message blast to 44 students at once? Yeah, you could, but I know, I've heard people say, well, why don't I just load up a big text chain. 

So if you load up a text chain, then you're also kind of spewing out everyone's phone numbers. Especially if you've created contacts, then you're exposing people's names with their phone numbers, which I believe would be a no-no. So try to do this one on one. Try to make it personal. I wouldn't spam mail. 

And if it's not free long-term for school districts, free through the rest of the year, your district has to request that access if they want to authorize the district. So you have the Google Suite thing, which I'm not sure about all the rules. But that would be an account that your school has. And if you wanted to just not use it to create a different email that you could use to place calls and different email you could associate the phone number with, that might work instead of going through the institution's designated email. 

Let's see. When I receive a call, am I able to see the name of the person calling me? Yes, if you create a contact for them. And so you create a contact, and then you will be able to see who's calling you. 

Looking through my settings, there is a section called payments, isn't it free? Yes. And that does refer to, oh, it says I have a current balance of $0.10 due. Maybe you placed an international call, or 2, you placed a call to a district that does have a charge so do check that out. 

But generally, there are no fees. Google doesn't charge you for this unless it's an international call. I do not see how to change my email. And again, for a change in your email, you go into settings. 

And then, you'll go to your account. And then, you can transfer the phone number, your linked numbers, your linked messages, outgoing calls. And then, you can get email alerts for missed calls here. 

And this is the Gmail account associated with it. So I can change that in my settings. I can change which email address. It says forward messages to email. And I've selected this email to get it to receive the messages at. 

Re students' privacy, is there a way to text message a group of students without seeing each other's phone numbers? Not that I know of. When you send out that text-- I just wouldn't do it. Just don't do that. 

And will students' parents see the name of who is calling? Many people won't pick up if the call is not from a known person. Yes, so you can combat that in two ways. 

You can frontload them. You can say, this is me, this is my phone number, and have that clearly stated somewhere in the materials you send students. And you can also create contacts so that you can tell who's calling you and they can set you as a contact as well. 

So is there a time limit for student messages? I have not experienced a time limit. And I have an account with Google Voice set up with my cell phone. 

The student already knows my Google Voice number. I want to open another account on my computer to reach my students in a bigger screen. Can I get the same number from Google Voice? Yeah, when you log in to your Google Voice account on your computer, just log in using the same account and everything will be the same. 

You'll just open it up and you'll see all of your messages there. You'll see all your past voicemails. Everything you've done and that account will appear there. 

So when you make an account on your computer, it's not changing the account. You don't have to create a different one. You just log in using the same account. 

Let me see. Can you send attachments, like PDF files? I believe so. When you open this, down here, this icon, you can attach things that are from your desktop or from your Google account, from your-- what is it called? 

I'm blanking right now on what that's called? Your Google, what is it? I can't I can't remember what it's called. 

But you can find things in your Google account and attach them and send them. Can students attach pictures of their homework? Yes, absolutely. They can take a picture and text it to you so that is definitely something you can do. 

Are there any more slides? No, there's no more slides. Just ones to refer you to how to get more information, more detailed information directly from Google. And also, from their message boards because these questions, these type of questions are infinite really. 

There's lots of things like this. People come up with. Find, like what if I do this and that? This isn't working, how do I find that? I really refer you to the Google Voice like little blogs and links and training videos. They'll have a lot of advice for you. 

So if I put seven names and numbers and send a batch message? Yeah, don't send group texts. Can I use a camera for communication? No, there's no video calls using this. 

And the Google Docs-- thank you. So the word I was looking for earlier-- thank you, anonymous attendee-- is Google Drive. So when you or when you click here the image file , it does open up your Google Drive. 

Let's see here. Can we make group calls? No, we cannot make group calls. That I know of you might somehow find somebody who figured out how to do that. 

I send some groups texts in groups of three to seven, the students did see each other's numbers, and they started a group conversation. It was a mistake on my part. Yeah, that's also is that they start talking to each other. And then, every time they send a message to each other, you're going to get that. So I don't know if you want all that traffic. 

NEDA ANASSERI: Katrina? 

KATRINA TAMURA: Yes, Neda. 

NEDA ANASSERI: I still don't see where you can change the email address associated with the account to? You showed the associated account, but not where or how to change it. They can't seem to find it. 

KATRINA TAMURA: OK. 

NEDA ANASSERI: We have somebody in the chat. Diane Wilson is saying it's in your account profile. 

KATRINA TAMURA: OK. Thank you, yeah, I don't see. That's what it is. I'm really sorry, I can't find it for you right now, but it's very detailed. It gets into lots of different settings. Can manage your Google account, so your data and personalization and account setup, your personal info. 

Yeah, I'm going to have-- I don't want to go into all of it, right now. But I can look up that. Look at that question and give you screenshots. When I can find it, when I'm not inside this one-- let me move this. 

NEDA ANASSERI: OK. 

KATRINA TAMURA: Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not sure. 

NEDA ANASSERI: That's OK, Katrina. 

KATRINA TAMURA: I'm trying to show you that right now. 

NEDA ANASSERI: That's OK. So let me review some of the other questions and see because there was a little bit of overlap between you and me. And I couldn't dismiss the questions as you were answering them live. 

The questions will be included in the recording. So if you don't want to miss anything tune into the recording. And we'll have the answers to the questions. 

And that's what we're going to wrap up with. So I'm going to go back up to the top of the questions. If I turn on Do Not Disturb, that means message will be sent to an email for later viewing. Correct? And yes. 

KATRINA TAMURA: Yes. Basically, the biggest questions here are, is it free? Yes, but there are some exceptions. If you're making international calls. Don't place group texts, not good. And yes, there are settings. 

I'm sorry, I cannot go deep into my account right now without exposing all of my personal information. But there are ways to change in the settings. Change the phone number you've chosen, and then, the email account that you are receiving all of these texts and transcriptions to. 

You cannot place video calls, but you can text, call, leave voicemails. And you do have the option to block calls when and to, set a limit on when people are calling you. So you can just turn it off so that you're not receiving text messages and calls from your Google Voice account. 

NEDA ANASSERI: All right, thank you, Katrina. I think, there's-- Alexander, are you still here? We have Alexander who is saying, what about my question to utilize my home phone with better reception instead of my linked cell number. Can I do that without showing personal home number? 

KATRINA TAMURA: That's the whole. Whatever number you use to initiate the account, it's going to be disguised. Students won't see that number. That's the beauty of Google Voice. It'll be whatever phone number you pick will be the number they receive. 

NEDA ANASSERI: All right, everyone have a great weekend. I'm going to hit end. And this will end our webinar for today. Thank you.