Need a texting for computer program

General Questions
#1

Hello Everyone,

I am trying to help my wife with her workload. She is a virtual teacher and has almost 200 students in her virtual class. Most of these students use text via cell phone as their primary means of communicating with her. Needless to say it is getting a bit difficult for her to try and keep up with up to 35 or 40 text an hour using her cell phone.

I am looking for a program for her that would take her incoming text and route them through the internet onto her computer, so she could recieve and respond using her laptop instead of her phone. I was thinking of using one called TextFree Web, and while it seems to be a good program you aren’t using your cell phone’s number for the text. This might not be that big of deal except trying to get almost 200 students to realize that they would have to text to a different number than they have been for months won’t be so easy.

Does anyone know of a free program that allows you to use your current cell phone number for texting but will route those texts to a computer? Any help would be appreciated. I would like to make her workload more productive and I figure she can save hours a week by being able to respond via the computer vs using her cell phone. Thanks in advance for any help.

#2

Depending on the phone and service provider, if she get a Google Voice number she can redirect texts to it (and still get them on her phone). I know that with my iPhone on Verizon after some research I could redirect all my voicemails to Google Voice, but I didn’t bother with texts, but I recall the sites I found saying it’s possible.

#3

She has a Samsung Android Galaxy (not the latest Galaxy, the one before the current one) and T-Mobile if that helps. I will look into Google voice, however I recall her saying something about not wanting to use Google Voice, though she might not have a choice.

I have GV on my iPhone and used to use it for voicemail transcripts, although the last few months it doesn’t seem to be able to transcribe any new voicemails for some reason.

#4

Might be a pain, but can she get the student’s phone providers? Many provide a way to send emails and convert them to text. So if a student has Verizon and the number 999-555-1234, she would add them to the address book as 9995551234@vtext.com.

Others (double check to make sure these work):
Verizon: vtext.com or vzwpix.com (MMS/pic)
Sprint: messaging.sprintpcs.com
TMobile: tmomail.net
AT&T: txt.att.net or mms.att.net (MMS)
Virgin: vmobl.com
US Cellular: email.uscc.net or mms.uscc.net (MMS)
Sprint Netxtel: messaging.nextel.com

I’m also not 100% that these are current companies, I just found online.

I think this would be much easier if she could have the students text her email at firstlast@school.com, then maybe she can just reply to them. Lots of emails to sift through, though.

#5

Check out Mighty Text.

#6

I 2nd Google Voice.

Additional features are the ability to turn off/mute incoming texts during non-working hours

and convenient transcripts of every conversation.

and what is essentially a forever number. If she ever decides to change her personal number, the kids can still contact that Google number no problem.

#7

Skype offeres txting, though I think it is a per txt fee instead of unlimited which may be impractical in her situation.

The students could also txt to an email address and your wife could reply to that message back to the phone.

I don’t know if this matters, but txting is a fast way of sending messages, using the same protocol as what makes the cell phone ring. If the txting has to do with real time lessons, such as asking your wife about what she is instructing, make sure that the new method she choses supports real time messaging - some systems will only check for messages like every 5-10 minutes which may not give good results.