The district just north south of where I live and just south north of where I work is going to begin offering e-mail accounts to many of its students if a vote goes well at a board meeting tomorrow night. That’s not a super big deal. What is is the reason why they’re considering it:
The district’s Technology Advisory committee members recommended the accounts so that students in middle and high schools could “communicate and collaborate locally and globally, and participate in and contribute to learning communities through e-mail,” according to a report detailing the e-mail account plan.
Under the plan, students could create school-related online journals and blogs, design Web pages, work on projects in teacher-created Internet spaces and produce podcasts.
Pretty cool, huh?
8 responses so far ↓
Jenn // May 16th 2007 at 6:49 am
Hey, when did you start living in Longmont and working in Ft. C?
Bud Hunt // May 16th 2007 at 9:00 am
Oops. My excitement upset my internal compass. I’ve corrected the error. Thanks!
Anne Davis // May 16th 2007 at 12:06 pm
Hi Bud,
Yes indeed! Very cool! Is there a link to an article about this? I would love to share it with some board members I know. Thanks for continuing to share these good stories!
Best,
Anne
Bud Hunt // May 16th 2007 at 12:56 pm
There’s a news article on the proposed change. The link’s above in the original post. I hope there’ll be a follow up piece in tomorrow’s paper. I’ll pass it along if there is.
Dean Shareski // May 16th 2007 at 2:34 pm
So am I to infer that students aren’t normally provided with school email and webspace? I thought everybody did.
Karl Fisch // May 17th 2007 at 6:32 pm
Interesting, but two thoughts:
1. Any idea what they’re using for blogs, web pages, and projects? Obviously that’s something different than simple email - is it something like Moodle or Blackboard? Or are they just “allowing” students to do that on the web now?
2. This sentence in the article troubles me somewhat: “Teachers and the IT department will have access to check accounts and read e-mails.” I wonder what is going to be considered “acceptable use,” and what the procedure is going to be to “read e-mails.”
JC Clarke // May 18th 2007 at 11:09 pm
This is fantastic, my project could have been so much easier and more effective if the students had school email accounts. I think this is long overdue, and it is a huge step toward bringing our schools into the twenty-first century.
Kelly Christopherson // May 20th 2007 at 12:05 am
That is something to be happy about. Now, hopefully, they don’t decide to shut you away from the rest of the world in your little “playground” where you won’t have access to the rest of the world. As I watch our division put up the walls, I wonder why they give us the tools only to tell us that it’s too risky our there so you’ll have to stay inside our walls. Here’s hoping that with this move, your kids will get to experience learning without walls!
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