Google's new offering can help or hurt school districts.Love it or hate it, Google's new Gmail service is refocusing attention on free e-mail See Internet e-mail service. issues that affect every school district. Gmail blows away its competition by providing each individual with a gigabyte of free storage--as much as 500 times the capacity of MSN (1) (MicroSoft Network) A family of Internet-based services from Microsoft, which includes a search engine, e-mail (Hotmail), instant messaging (Windows Live Messaging) and a general-purpose portal with news, information and shopping (MSN Directory). Hotmail or Yahoo Mail--the equivalent of 500,000 pages. The service also features Google search Google is owned by Google, Inc. whose mission statement is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". The largest search engine on the web, Google receives several hundred million queries each day through its various services. tools that can find and sort messages instantaneously by keywords in the text. As a result, users will no longer need to delete e-mail periodically to free up space, or keep messages in topic folders to make them easier to find. Gmail can be stored and accessed indefinitely. But Gmail also introduces a controversial feature where Google computers routinely scan incoming e-mail and display advertising in screen margins tied to the content. A message about an upcoming conference in Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. , for example, might call up ads for shows and restaurants. Critics are calling this an invasion of privacy invasion of privacy n. the intrusion into the personal life of another, without just cause, which can give the person whose privacy has been invaded a right to bring a lawsuit for damages against the person or entity that intruded. , and they warn that Google may also be able to combine information from personal e-mail and search activities, and prepare detailed profiles on individuals that may be retained even after accounts are closed. However, others feel the enormous benefits of Gmail are worth the compromises, and they point out that e-mail is typically scanned for spam and viruses anyway. It is also possible that users may be interested in the ads. Free E-Mail in Schools Most school districts now provide Webbased e-mail accounts for each staff member, such as AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. , FirstClass and Outlook. Nevertheless, surprisingly large numbers of teachers and administrators have decided to use free e-mail accounts professionally. For example, in California's Mountain Empire School District, Superintendent Patrick Judd says administrators have not required the use of school-based e-mail, so Hot mail addresses are common in the staff directory. Other districts have policies that limit staff use of free e-mail accounts. With the new Gmail option making free e-mail accounts more alluring, this is a good time to review Web-based e-mail See Internet e-mail service and HTML e-mail. alternatives for your schools. Free e-mail brings unique benefits to individuals but also gigantic problems to schools. Users of free e-mail cite numerous advantages over most school services http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Schools_Collection_May_2007_2.JPGSchool Services are a business unit of the National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa). They provide curriculum and advisory services to support New Zealand schools. : * Messages can be sent and received from any Web-linked computer, at home, in the community, or elsewhere * E-mail can be accessed through other Internet-linked devices including cell phones and PDAs * Messages cannot be retrieved by others in the district, so privacy in activities such as job searches is protected * Separate accounts can easily be set up for specialized applications such as school projects, and with unique names such as "JobSeeker" * The e-mail bypasses school filters, so messages on sensitive topics are less likely to be lost * The included spare and virus filters are continually updated, and may be more effective than those in the district * The e-mail is integrated with other useful services including online calendars, address books and instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or technologies. However, on the negative side, using free e-mail accounts in school environments carries significant risks, and it is extremely difficult to monitor misuse. As one technology coordinator said, without district storage there is no district control, so hate e-mail, harassing messages and even pornographic images can be transmitted through school computers without detection. Some districts have established policies that ban the use of free e-mail accounts outright, while others allow limited use for specific purposes. Unfortunately, though, too many districts have not yet addressed the issues. Free Web-based e-mail such as Gmail offers substantial benefits for you and your staff that are definitely worth exploring. But since unsupervised use in schools can lead to trouble, you also need to weigh the risks and establish appropriate policies for your district. DA Odvard Egil Dyrli is senior editor and emeritus professor of education at the University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut is the State of Connecticut's land-grant university. It was founded in 1881 and serves more than 27,000 students on its six campuses, including more than 9,000 graduate students in multiple programs. UConn's main campus is in Storrs, Connecticut. . Web Resources * AOL www.aol.com * FirstClass www.firstclass.com * Google Grnail gmail.google.com * MSN Hotmail www.hotmail.msn.com * Outlook www.microsoft.com/outlook * Yahoo Mail See Yahoo! Mail. mail.yahoo.com |
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