I love that our school uses gmail for our school e-mail accounts. All of our students get school e-mail accounts as well. The students that I teach are living in such a different world in terms on technology. I remember using the old square like Macs with floppy disks in elementary school. I remember playing number munchers and Oregon trail. I remember printing things out on the perforated printer paper. Now my students e-mail me papers, send me messages through gchat, and make documentaries through movie maker.

The other day I had my students use google documents through their e-mail accounts to record information for a group project they were working on in social studies. It was cool to see them all put in information they researched into their group document. On google documents, you can see who else is looking at the document at the same time and you can see what they type. I had them add information to their group document and use a different color font, so they could differentiate who added what information. Then, I can go into each of these documents and see the work that they’ve done and give them feedback.

I’ve also recently discovered using labels in gmail, which I’m planning on teaching to my students next. It’s a great way to get my students organized even with their e-mail!