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January 26, 2011
Ins and Outs of Calling via the Net
By DAVID POGUE, New York Times

Correction Appended

This week’s e-mail bag brought a note that echoes the sentiments of many others:

“Hi David! Am I the only one getting really confused by all the free/cheap Internet calling options? Would you mind clearing the steadily occluding waters of Skype, Google Voice, Line2, FreePhone2Phone, and so on? Your fan, Caroline C.”

I loved this e-mail message for two reasons. First, I knew that the answer might make a great column.

Second, you so rarely encounter the word “occluding.”

All right, Caroline, here’s the story.

The world of phone calls is changing fast. Any time some service is both essential and expensive — like phone service — you can bet that somebody will invent less expensive alternatives.

As faster Internet connections caught on, it didn’t take long for clever programmers to realize that the Internet could transmit voices.

The world was suddenly full of programs (Skype, iChat, Google Talk, various Messenger programs) that let you make free “phone calls” to anywhere, as long as you and your callee were both sitting at computers.

Then came the era of cellphones that could connect to the Internet. What a mind-boggler! Doesn’t that mean that app phones (like iPhone and Android phones) could, in theory, make free “phone calls” over the Internet, bypassing voice networks? Your Internet calls would never use up any of your minutes. You’d save all kinds of money. You’d rock the very foundations of the telecom world.

Well, we’re getting there. With a few technically complex exceptions there’s still no app that offers all three of these elements: free calls, to regular phone numbers, from your cellphone. In most cases, you can choose only two of the three. For example, you can make free calls to any phone number — but only from your computer or landline phone (Google Voice). Or you can make free calls from your cellphone to other owners of an app (Fring, Skype, TruPhone) — but not to actual phone numbers.

To prepare this report on the state of Internet calling, I made a lot of calls in all kinds of different configurations: to a cellphone, to a landline, over WiFi, over cellular, and so on. Over time, it became clear that Internet calling apps represent an excellent exercise in expectation-lowering.

For example, compared with regular cellphone calling, Internet calls usually take longer to connect. The sound quality is almost always inferior; you’d describe it as muffled, faint or distant.

Finally, the voice delay is measurably worse on Internet calls. During each test, I conducted a little experiment: I told my calling partner that I was going to count to three, and asked her to say “three” simultaneously with me. Even on a typical cellphone call, I hear her “three” distinctly late — a half second or so. But on Internet calls, that delay is usually a full second or even more. Don’t try to practice your comic timing on an Internet call.

Ordinarily, calling apps connect to the Internet when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot. When you’re not, these apps can connect to the Internet over your cellphone company’s data network. In that setup, though, the results are disappointing; the sound is muffled and delayed, and, if you’re driving, the calls drop frequently. Internet calling apps are generally worth using only when you’re on Wi-Fi.

Exaggerating the abilities of these apps is par for the course. Skype and Fring, for example, claim to permit phone-to-phone video chats, even when you’re not using Wi-Fi. In practice, the quality and delays are so horrific that the feature is unusable.

Despite all of these drawbacks, though, these apps offer two unassailable benefits. First, of course, they can save you a lot of money. If you make most of your calls over Wi-Fi, you can downgrade to a cheaper cellphone calling plan, because you’re using fewer minutes. (If you have Line2, Pinger or Google Voice, you can also cancel your text-messaging plan because they offer unlimited free texting.)

And second, these Wi-Fi apps let you make solid calls indoors — precisely where cellular coverage is weakest.

All right, then, Caroline: here’s a rundown. Most of these apps are available for iPhone and Android phones. Each recreates your phone’s existing phone-calls app, complete with a dialing pad, Recent Calls list, address book (inherited from the one already on your phone) and so on. All offer very cheap calls to overseas numbers.

SKYPE Free “calls” to anyone, anywhere in the world, with Skype on their computers or phones — which is a lot of people. The company says it is averaging 124 million users a month. If both of you are on Wi-Fi, the call quality is insanely clear and realistic, more like an FM radio broadcast than a cellphone call. Despite the clarity, delay problems can come and go during the call. Delay can still be a problem, though.

To call actual phone numbers, it’s $3 a month for unlimited calls within the United States, paid in advance; there are all kinds of other plans. (With most of these apps, billing can get complicated, and you should not expect tech support of the caliber supplied by your cell company. Line2 is the only app here, for example, with a human staff on its tech support line.)

You can send text messages for 11 cents each. But recipients’ replies come to your phone’s regular text-message app, not to Skype, so you can’t see the back-and-forths in the same app. And you pay for the replies at the standard carrier rate.

TRUPHONE Unlimited calls to landlines in 38 countries, or cellphones in 9 countries, for $13 a month. Like all of these WiFi calling apps, TruPhone turns an iPad or iPod Touch into a Wi-Fi cellphone. No text messaging.

FRING This app’s strength is its ability to connect to a lot of other services, like Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, SIP, Yahoo Messenger and AIM — either with “phone calls” or typed chats. As with Skype, you can make calls to phone numbers only by buying credits in advance; you’re billed 0.7 cents or 0.9 cents a minute to domestic landlines and cellphones. Sound quality isn’t great. No text messaging.

LINE2 This app gives your phone a second phone line, with its own phone number. It’s smart enough to place and receive calls over Wi-Fi when available, and over the cell network otherwise; $10 a month buys all the Wi-Fi calls you want, to regular phone numbers. It’s the only app here that offers true phone-to-phone text messaging, which is very useful. My only beef: the app takes too long to notice that it’s on a Wi-Fi network before you can place a call, sometimes 15 seconds.

GOOGLE VOICE Google Voice is free. It offers a million glorious features — transcripts of your voice mail messages, for starters, and free text messages, which is huge. It does not, however, save you any money on cellphone calls; it places calls over the regular cellular network, so it doesn’t conserve cellphone minutes. (Google Voice can make free domestic calls from your computer or a landline, not from your cellphone — at least not without a tricky app called Talkatone.)

FREEPHONE2PHONE This service works on any phone, not just app phones like iPhone and Android. If you listen to a 10- or 12-second ad, you get a free 10-minute call — to landlines in 55 countries.

To use it, you start by dialing a local number, which you look up at FreePhone2Phone.com. After the ad plays, you dial the country code and number; sound quality is excellent. Beats using calling cards, that’s for sure.

TEXTFREE WITH VOICE TextFree, this app’s predecessor, gave an iPod Touch its own phone number — and gave you unlimited free Wi-Fi text messaging. The new free “With Voice” app adds voice calls from Wi-Fi, with a fascinating payment twist: you earn free minutes by downloading certain promoted apps (say, 15 or 30 minutes each). You can also buy minutes cheaply (for example, 250 minutes for $5). This app comes breathtakingly close to turning a Touch into a full iPhone — at a fraction of the monthly cost — which makes it catnip for teenagers and those even younger.

So there you have it, Caroline: my effort to render the cheap Internet calling options just a little less occluded. May all your minutes be free ones!

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com

Correction: January 28, 2011

The State of the Art column on Thursday, about Internet calling apps, described the capabilities of such apps incorrectly. A few of them allow free calls to regular phone numbers from cellphones; it is not the case that no apps meet that description. David Pogue has written a follow-up post about these apps. The column also misstated the capabilities of Google Voice. Besides offering free domestic calls from your computer, the service also allows free calls from a landline phone and, with the use of an app called Talkatone, from a cellphone. It is not the case that it does not allow free calls from a phone.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/technology/personaltech/27pogue.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=technology

Administrators not engaging technology are not just in danger of becoming irrelevant, they are in danger of becoming living fossils. Engaging technology means exploring the potential of technology too, not just expecting it of teachers and students to do so. Recently, I stumbled across this video and it was a vivid reminder of just how fast our world is changing due to the Internet. Those who still hold on to the idea that the "Internet Is a Fad" are delusional. Both the Internet and its functions and uses are expanding phenomenally. My advice to fellow administrators: "Engage it, explore it, or you will be left behind." For those who are having a bit of a problem understanding how rapidly the Internet and its many uses are changing, here’s a visual reminder.



The statistics are truly overwhelming, and I honestly can't imagine that there are still school administrators who fail to see how the Internet is disrupting everything we do. I'm not concerned as much about students being left behind technologically. After watching this video, I'm more afraid of administrators being left behind.

Recently, I began reading Carl Sagan’s book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.  At the beginning he writes of his school experiences. When I began reading that part of the book, I expected a tribute to some teacher who inspired him to the great heights he reached in science achievement. Instead he writes:

 “I wish I could tell you about inspirational teachers in science from my elementary or junior high or high school days. But as I think back on it, there were none. There was rote memorization about the Periodic Table of Elements, levers and inclined planes, green plant photosynthesis, and the difference between anthracite and bituminous coal. But there was no soaring sense of wonder, no hint of an evolutionary perspective, and nothing about mistaken ideas that everybody once believed. In high school laboratory courses, there was an answer we were supposed to get. We were marked off if we didn’t get it. There was no encouragement to pursue our own interests or hunches or conceptual mistakes.”

After reading Sagan’s comments about his experiences in school, I couldn’t help by ask a few questions:

• Have high schools changed in any way so that a student’s experience of science, or math, or social studies is much different from what Sagan describes?
• Are our high schools still stuck in time warps where memorization is the rule of the day, instead of students being actively engaged in the content?
• Do we engage student interests in the curriculum we teach? Or are we so hampered by the mania of test scores, there isn’t time for this?
• If they are fundamentally the same, how can we say we are preparing students for the 21st century?

Sagan goes on to say he didn’t have a teacher that inspired him to explore his passion for astronomy. Instead, he maintained his interest in science through all his school years by reading on his own, books and magazines on science fact and fiction. He pursued his insatiable  desire for learning science on his own. Sadly, he learned in spite of teachers more interested in having him memorize the Periodic Table of Elements and the physics of levers and mathematics of inclined planes.

This is not meant to be an indictment of science teachers. There’s enough blame for inauthentic teaching and reliance of rote memorization to cover all subject areas. It’s true. We are always going to have those students who learn in spite of what we do instructionally in the classroom. But I can’t help but wonder how many Carl Sagans have been turned off to science by the regimen of rote memorization and inauthentic learning experiences forced upon them over the years. Or, how many Shakepeares have turned away from writing because of having to write five paragraph essays. If we are truly sincere about education reform and moving teaching and learning into the 21st century, then no where should we find a budding scientist or writer suffering under the weight of inauthentic classroom experiences.

Learning to blog is an uphill process in which I engaged for the first time in the spring of 2008.  I honestly do not remember the name of the blog, but I established it without a purpose and without a focus. It was just to experiment with blogging. The kinds of posts I wrote on that blog were varied; they ranged from comments on books I was reading to opinions about education policy. I basically blogged for blogging’s sake, without any concern about audience interest. Naturally, I don’t know whether any one ever read it, because I did not look at any statistics. It truly was a blog for me learn how to use the blogging software and simply be able to say to others, “I have a blog.”

In the summer of 2008, I became principal of a middle school, and I was looking for a way to provide my staff at that school with a weekly memo that provided them with ideas for the classroom, words of encouragement, and dates to remember. My first issue was a paper version. It seemed to be wasteful, so I decided to establish a blog for my staff. I started out posting once a week. I did well for the first three weeks, but the pressures of trying to be a school administrator and all the tasks that entails prevented me from being able to post each week, so I cut back to every other week, at least until that too became a hassle. Having the time to post and to gather ideas to post were problematic, so I eventually cut back to about twice a month.

When I left that middle school to take my current job as a high school principal of a 21st century school, I decided to create a blog that  focused entirely on advocating for technology in the schools, teaching, and public education. Hence, The 21st Century Principal blog was born. During the course of a year, I can say I have grown as a blogger and increasingly have become fascinated with this technological tool. What are some lessons I have encountered during these three years? I’m sure there are much better bloggers out there with maybe different advice, but here’s my five big blogging lessons I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way.

• You have to have a purpose for your blog. Well, actually you don’t. If you’re satisfied with just posting your thoughts on the web, and you don’t care who reads it, then blog away. But, to attract readers, you have to have a purpose and a focus. Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett in their book Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income call this having a focus, niche blogging. You have to find a niche. While I’m certainly not into blogging for a six-figure income, it makes sense. A blog needs to focus. Yet, that focus can’t be too narrow because then you limit the number readers who would be interested in your posts. That tension between focus and topic span is key.
• You have to post when you have something to say. I’ve read others who say you have to post at least every day, twice a day, or even several times a day. Honestly, if I was a professional writer and not a school administrator and educator, I might be able to post multiple times a day. I think I’ve found a much simpler rule. I post when I have something to say. I don’t post when I have nothing to say. I don’t harass myself all day with statements, “I’ve got to do a blog post today.” If something comes along in my reading or during my experiences of the day that I think is a blog topic, I post.
• Just like emails, when you create a post under the heat of passion, it’s sometimes better to save it as a draft before posting. There have been times I have read an article about education that gets my temper flaring. I write a scathing post, post on the blog, then I have second thoughts and pull it down because it sounds like I’m belittling others and not focusing on the issues. Now, if the post is one that I feel emotionally charged about while writing it, I save it as a draft before posting it. Some of those posts are still there and most likely will not be posted live in their current form because I honestly do not like their tone. The beauty of blogging is that I can write a post and save it as a draft and think about whether it is really something I want the world to see.
• You have to be wary of blistering and emotional political posts. I have posts that that often err into politics and controversy, so this one is pretty hard for me follow at times. Still, the purpose of my blog is not entirely political, so there are times when I have to steer myself away from purely political. As you can tell from some of my posts, I do not do that well sometimes. Still, the purpose of my blog is not just to rain down sarcasm and nastiness on those to whom I disagree. There are bloggers who do that much better than me. I try to control the impulse to be sarcastic and scathing with, as you can see, varying degrees of success.
• You look for topics by reading RSS feeds, visiting news sites, watching the Twitter stream, and doing your job. I subscribe to over a hundred RSS feeds from a countless number of blogs and news sites. While I do not read everything, I do scan through these each day, reading those that are of interest. These often sow the seeds for my topics. I also visit favorite news and opinion web sites. Often, an idea for a blog post sprang from a news story I found on CNN’s web site or our local newspaper web site. Watching the Twitter stream is in some ways like a thermometer. It takes the temperature of those I follow by allowing me to see what they’re responding to and commenting on. There are times when a simple Tweet turns into a blog post. Finally, I often share ideas and gems from my own reading. As a voracious reader, I keep a notes file on each book I read. Sometimes these turn into ideas for blog posts. While I’m no expert on blogging, I have found blog posts in the most likeliest and unlikeliest of places.

For me, at least, learning to blog, has been a process and it still continues. I make if very clear, I’m no professional. I honestly don’t ever know whether my last post is even going to get a reaction. Sometimes the ones I put the most energy into, are the ones that seem to get ignored. That, of course, has been true of writing before the web even existed.

In reflecting on my one year anniversary with this blog, I was just wondering if there’s anything I can add to the argument that administrators should be blogging. Because of my sixteen years in the classroom as an English teacher I love blogging. I have always been a journal-keeper and closet writer, and I reluctantly admit I’ve always wanted to publish. Blogging has given me that outlet. Still, if I were going to convince other administrators to blog, what would be my selling points? Based on my personal experiences I can only currently offer the following:

• Blogging is another node in the Professional Learning Network. Posting on a blog has allowed me to connect with other administrators and educators. For example, after a recent post on providing students wireless access, I connected with a principal in British Columbia, a director of technology in New York, a media specialist in Australia, and an assistant superintendent in Wisconsin. Blogging provides still another way to connect with educators globally.
• Blogging is a way to share ideas with other educators and get ideas in return. As a formal teacher, I have always treasured those professional development activities where teachers sit across the table and share what they do in their classrooms. Some of the best teaching ideas I stumbled upon came from those sessions. Now, as an administrator, I can share my ideas blogging, and often I will receive a comment or an email from a fellow administrator leading me to their ideas.
• Blogging is a way engaging others in discussions about topics that matter to you.  By posting on topics of interest, a user can engage a potential global audience in a discussion on that topic. The ability of readers to leave comments makes it possible for others to engage in that world-wide education conversation. For example, I once posted my thoughts about Secretary Duncan’s Race to the Top initiative. That post invited others to post their thoughts, resulting in a conversation about the merits and drawbacks of the initiative. Blogging is an excellent way to engage others in global conversations about education.

I’m sure there are many other reasons to blog. For me, blogging is another way to be a part of something for which I am passionate, public education. Perhaps some of you can offer some more reasons why administrators should blog.

Earlier, I posted 4 of my own reasons why school administrators need to get connected to Twitter. Once they are connected, the next question is how to help them engage in its use? Sometimes, this is not an easy task because so many believe that once you have a Twitter account established, then the job is finished. This is simply not true. To foster the development of a Twitter PLN and connections to others, there is more work to do. Technologists, teachers, and administrators trying to get other administrators to truly engage in the use of Twitter might consider doing the following things to get them truly engaged in its use.

• Help them find and connect to fellow administrators and educators who are prolifically engaged in the Twitter conversation. This can be difficult because just connecting to massive administrative or educator lists found on sites like Twibes may not yield solid connections. You can use these sites as a starting place, but administrators just dipping into Twitter  need quality connections not quantity. For their Twitter PLN to become dynamic and truly profesionally useful, teaching them how to be selective about followers will go a long way. Help them find administrators and educators who share solid ideas and resources and who use Twitter to engage in the global education conversation.
• Help them find their “Twitter Voice.” One of the important ways to grow a vibrant Twitter PLN is to post updates. If you are going to use Twitter to engage education colleagues globally, you’ve got to post. This means you have to have a Twitter voice; those in your PLN have to hear you. Teachers and technologists who want to get their administrators engaged in using Twitter need to help them find that voice by guiding them in posting. Encourage them to post ideas they’ve gleaned from professional learning and personal tidbits of wisdom rather than what they had for lunch. Teach them to compose and post a variety of Tweets such as:
• Resource Sharing Tweets: These can be links to online resources, titles of books they value, or conferences they’ve found effective. Sharing is what Twitter is about.
• Quote Tweets: I read a great deal and keep a list of quotes from all my reading. Occasionally, one of those quotes just seems to be an excellent item to share, especially in the middle of an educational issue conversation I’m following.
• Opinion Tweets: These can be your own opinions on educational issues or other issues being discussed in the media. Or, you can post other opinions. Most often these Tweets invite discussion or comments from the Twitter PLN.
• Responses to Other Tweets (Mentions): These are personal reactions to what others have posted. This is as important as posting original Tweets if Twitter is actually to be used to engage in the global conversation about education.
• Question Tweets: These are questions about issues and problems that invite responses from those on the Twitter PLN. There is nothing wrong with posting an thought provoking question and inviting responses.
• Help them set up and use a Twitter client. The web version of Twitter is perhaps not the best way for administrators to engage in using Twitter. I am partial those clients like Tweetdeck that allow users to set up multiple columns. For example, I can follow my regular timeline, my mentions, my #edchat stream, and administrators list all at once. Teach administrators how to use these kinds of clients so that they can use them to effectively follow their PLN. Otherwise, following the Tweet stream may be more problematic.
• Help them to understand that quantity of followers and those who they are following is not the most important. Instead, show them quality Twitter users to follow. Make recommendations to them, but not too many. A quality Twitter PLN is dynamic and almost a living thing. There’s no need focus on statistics such as followers. Focus instead on getting connected with the best contributors to the global conversation about education.

Getting Administrators to set up a Twitter account is only a first step, and just doing that is not going to get them engaged in using it. Instead, Twitter-savy technologists, teachers and administrators need to help them begin the process of getting engaged in a Twitter PLN. This means providing them with a level of guided practice until they become engaged in their own Twitter PLN.

In an age when there’s so much debate about merit pay, test scores, and accountability, I ask myself the question: What can I learn from Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us that I can take directly back to my school and put into practice? I have reread Pink’s book with this lens, and here’s some of my thoughts.

As a school leader if I rely on carrot-and-stick motivational schemes, I will not get the organizational results I seek. If school leaders are waiting for states to implement bonus pay schemes to solve their problems, they will be disappointed. Pink outlines in his book seven deadly flaws to using carrots and sticks: 1) they extinguish intrinsic motivation, 2) they diminish performance, 3) they crush creativity, 4) they crowd out good behavior, 5) they encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior, 6) they become addictive, and 7) they foster short-term thinking. As a school principal, everyone of these side effects is the opposite from that which I would like foster our school culture. I want teachers and students to be intrinsically motivated: that’s called high engagement. I certainly do not want diminished performance, creativity crushed, and good behavior crowded out by a fixation on “what’s-in-it-for me thinking.” A school where cheating, shortcut taking, and a focus on short-term thinking will hardly take our students into the 21st century. Administrators would do well not to turn to carrot-and stick motivational schemes to foster higher performance.

Instead of relying on carrot-and-stick motivational schemes, as a school leader, I need to foster a high performance culture that values and emphasizes autonomy, mastery, and purpose. What this means in practical terms, as a school leader, I can’t view my staff as pawns in a scheme to get the best test scores. Students aren’t raw materials that to which we as educators add value to by pouring knowledge into their heads. For my school, I would much rather have staff focused on the work rather than “what’s-in-it-for-me.” In addition, my job as principal is create a culture where teachers and students pursue “mastery as an asymptote” as Pink calls it. This means the joy of working comes from pursuing mastery because it is elusive. Finally, as school leader I need to keep our purpose out front. This means keeping purpose maximization, the educational needs of our kids, at the center of what we’re doing.

In the past year, there has been a great deal of debate about what reform should look like, and we who are passionate about kids and education need to be involved in that debate. But even in the midst of that debate I feel these two principles from Daniel Pink can transcend all those reforms. While all those who call themselves education reformers fight over the scraps from the Kings table, as school leaders we can focus on making our schools places where everyone is engaged in education, not worrying about “what’s in it for me.” Schools can be places where autonomy is prized and is the rule, where the push for mastery is the goal, and the purpose is educating our students.