The responses that I received regarding student e-mail were varied but
good...THANK YOU to ALL WHO RESPONDED!
Sorry that it took me a while to post hit - the holidays, ah, the
holidays!
Christie
RESPONSES WERE:
“We used to feel the same way- but - I guess sometimes you have to ask
yourself these kind of questions --
do I not allow any students to have recess because a few will make
mistakes?
Do we stop all children from playing on the playground because someone
may fall or someone may take them?
Using the Internet or email is another learning experience -
Kids will be kids - they call each other names in person -- and they
will call each other names in email -- How the instruction and
discipline is applied makes all the difference.
Do we have problems - sure -- but in what area can kids not get into
trouble? Even though we think we have covered all the bases -- they will
get one by you everytime and then you monitor and adjust --
Spent 23 years with jr. high kids --- and learned "alot" before
venturing to the district office.”
______________________________________________________________________
“In Maine, all 7th and 8th grade students have iBooks and a FirstClass
e-mail account through the statewide MLTI (Maine Learning Technology
Initiative). Our district also provides FirstClass e-mail accounts for
students in our high school. The reason for having an in-house e-mail
system is that problems can be tracked and dealt with unlike a 3rd party
e-mail. Students who are guilty of infractions have their e-mail account
suspended for a specified time before getting it back. A couple of our
teachers use it effectively to communicate with their students in terms
of
handouts, homework turn-in, etc. However, most do not utilize it. I
personally think it is a tremendous resource if staff would take the
time
to use it. Kids love getting and sending e-mail so why not capitalize on
that? I am on our middle school laptop committee and this is a constant
conversation as it is a management issue. Someone has to be able to deal
with issues that arrise and monitor use and that is time consuming. Our
computer integration specialist is responsible for the management of the
iBooks. Hope this helps.”
“Christie, we have the policy that students are not allowed to use email
except when school related. I encourage students to open email accounts
if they don't already have them. There have been so many times when our
disk drives and printers have failed and we've had to send the student's
work to another computer as an attachment. I think that you should teach
your students how to open an email account and how to use it
responsibly.
I am at a high school but I would still recommend this for younger
students. They are going to open an email account eventually, so why not
get an address they can keep through college.
I prefer Yahoo, but Gmail is also a good option. These providers give
you a huge inbox which you can search easily. I have had an account with
Yahoo for about 6 years, I have about 5000 messages archived and I can
find pretty much anything by doing a search by a key word.”
_______________________________________________________________________
“We don't have e-mail access for students.”
“We do not allow our students to use their email accounts, nor do we
provide
them with one. There are several reasons, they are very hard to
supervise
and since we do not invite strangers into the building either in person
or
by phone to communicate with our students we feel that extends to email
as
well. Somewhat of a stretch I agree but still valid. There are
probably
not 5 students in this entire building who do not have email at home,
therefore that is where they can use them.”
“Our school district bans email such as yahoo and hotmail. However,
this
year, each student has an email at school that is set up with our moodle
site. The idea was that this would be a way to teacher's to communicate
with the students by sending assignments, worksheets, ect. The
problem's have already started though with students sending each other
inappropriate content and we have had one case of "cyber-bullying" where
a student was harassing another student in school over the email (he has
since been banned from all computer use at school for the rest of the
year).”
“Ours doesn't because we get Internet service from our regional
educational
service center and they block it and other forums such as chat and blogs
because "students may access inappropriate content." Also, we have
gotten
viruses through e-mail attachments but that wasn't the students' fault,
that
was teachers. It had to be because students can't have e-mail. We can't
even
check our home e-mail accounts because of the filter.”
“We provide each of our students with a school email account this
allows
them to send homework home if they have a home email address. They can
also send info from home to school. They cannot access their school
account from home and they are blocked at school from accessing
commercial accounts such as hotmail.
So far it has worked very well.”
“We piloted student e-mail accounts with 7th graders last year (we are a
7-12 school). This year, every student in school has a school account.
We have been using gaggle.net, but have had some issues with the service
(reliability) that are being addressed. As a whole, however, I think
that our school community is very happy with our move to student e-mail
accounts.”
“I've asked several times but can't get the powers to OK any sort of
email
for students.”
“We have started using Gaggle over the last few months. Some of out 8th
graders email with authors and some 4th graders are emailing other
classes across the country as they are working on their US geography.
Gaggle edits for content and send the offending email to the teacher or
whoever is listed as the administrator. We haven't had this happen yet.
The really nice thing is that it is very easy to close the accounts when
the project is over and set up new ones if necessary.”
-----Original Message-----
From: School Library Media & Network Communications
[mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Christie Ginther
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 11:11 PM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: [LM_NET] Student E-mail
I am interested in knowing how many of you out there are in a school
setting that allows students to have e-mail accounts (through gaggle.net
or another e-mail provider). What do you feel are the pros and cons?
What provider are you using?
My district does not allow students to have a school account and they do
not allow ANY third party e-mail accounts (that is policy). Basically
students may not access e-mail of any kind, for any reason, no
exceptions.
I would like for my students to have safe, student oriented e-mail
accounts (which I'm thinking do exist) for a variety of learning
purposes. As a matter of fact, I am asking that the third party e-mail
policy be amended to include e-mail providers that are geared towards
students specifically (like gaggle.net) but which must first meet the
approval of the district technology department after careful review. (A
compromise, I'm thinking...) I need your experiences & opinions on this
as I have no experience with connecting students with e-mail.
I will post a hit of any responses that I receive.
Thanks in advance...
Christie Ginther
**************************************
Christie Ginther
Library Media Specialist
christie.ginther@brun.k12.va.us
Meherrin-Powellton Elementary School
Lawrenceville, Virginia (USA)
Phone: 434-577-5008
Fax: 434-577-5001
________________________________________
**************************************
Christie Ginther
Library Media Specialist
christie.ginther@brun.k12.va.us
Meherrin-Powellton Elementary School
Lawrenceville, Virginia (USA)
Phone: 434-577-5008
Fax: 434-577-5001
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