Gmail at the Elementary Level

[Andrew Fekete]

Prior to this year, our elementary students did not have Google Apps accounts at all.  I got them turned on when I came into my position which made me very popular early.  :)  I am now working on a proposal this summer to allow elementary students access to internal email.  I would adjust the settings so they can only email their teachers and fellow students.  

Assuming you have email turned on, what I am wondering is if you can provide some insight in the best ways that you have seen Gmail used at the elementary level?  What educational benefits do your students and staff have by having this service available?  Were their any implications that we should be aware of prior to turning it on?  I have some thoughts and ideas and feel that it would be a great benefit to our students and teachers but wanted to connect with some districts that are using it currently for perspective.  

Thank you for your help in advance.

Sincerely,

- Andy Fekete

Andrew...@ipsd.org

847-284-4533

Google Education Trainer

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[Watson, Branden]

We have email turned on from 5th grade on up. We have our domain limited so that they can only send to staff and within their own domain. We also have about 6 other domain that they can email with mostly to sign up for accounts like Prezi and Edmodo. 

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[Tom Donovan]

We provide email accounts to our 5th-8th graders and Google Apps accounts w. email disabled for 2nd-4th.  We will enable email for younger grades at the request/discretion of the teachers and building administration.  I don't think it is my place to force that on them if they are not ready to support student email use with their students.

Like you, we restrict student accounts to within our domain, but something I hadn't expected happened not long after our initial group of students received their accounts before.  We had parents asking how they could email their children (and vice versa).  It's not a huge issue and we haven't changed our practice, but it did give us pause.  Why shouldn't a parent be able to send email to their child's school account and vice versa?  (And whitelisting all the parent email addresses is not a road we want to go down.)

My 2 cents...

-Tom

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Tom Donovan
Chief Technology Officer
Aptakisic-Tripp SD 102
Buffalo Grove, IL

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[Christine Dunathan]

We had students emailing each other during class, off-topic, and eventually had to disable email for students.   

[Buddy Pride]

Andy,

We have been using GAFE for about 2 years now, and we have been 1:1 with Chromebooks for the last year.  We have had email turned on for all students from the beginning.  Mostly for teachers and students to be able to email information to each other, but this also allows students to email the "Hi-5 work" to parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles, etc.  It has also been needed for online services such as Spelling City, ScootPad, etc.

We have had some students use email for personal questions such as "will you go on a date with me?" but it hasn't proven to be a big problem.  Starting next year, email ettiquete will be integrated into our writing curriculum.  Students need to treat their school email as if it were corporate email.  They need to understand what is appropriate use, and appropriate writing for email as opposed to less formal forms of writing.  So, if you plan on implementing email, I would really encourage that you update the curriculum to include "email writing".

Thanks, Buddy

Buddy Pride, Ed.D.

Director of Curriculum and Technology

South Beloit CUSD 320

bpr...@sb320.org

Direct: 815-389-8985

Mobile: 815-289-9916

www.sb320.org

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." - Epictetus

On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 11:48 AM, Andrew Fekete <andrew...@ipsd.org> wrote:

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[George Sorrells]

I'm with Buddy.  We have had it turned on internally for a couple of years with no problems at the ES level.  Our biggest issues are at the Middle School level.  I think opening it up at an early age combined with some digital citizenship is a good thing.

George Sorrells 

We shouldn't be teaching technology, we should be using technology to teach!                                          
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Winneconne Community School District 
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