Technology Coordinators Network

"Implementing e-mail solutions for educational settings"

Conference Call:
Technology Coordinators and Vendors Discuss Use of Email in the Schools

September 29, 2002

Participating:

Patty Hendricks, Barry Mansfield, Kelly Feighan, Jon Landis, Richard Esperson, Bonnie Hartman, Jeff Patterson, Mike Moumoutjis, Eric Young, Joe Malesich, William Lee, Nancy Willard, Cheryl Rein

Technology Coordinators:

Jon Landis (West Shore School District, PA) said that his office has supplied laptops to teachers. A big concern is wireless security protocols for email.

Richard Esperson (Elizabeth School District, New Jersey) has a large infrastructure in the district which is working well. They are using Groupwise with internet access, which gives their teachers access to email from any internet connected computer, at any time. In the Elizabeth School District, teachers have email accounts, but district policy currently forbids students having their own accounts. Students send messages under the teacher's classroom account. For instance, math teachers in the district allow students to participate in Math Forum by submitting classroom email messages through the teacher's account.

Eric Young (Warren County School District, PA) is concerned about web access for the email system. They currently have a shared calendar system that is working well, although it has added some stress to the network. They are now interested in providing web-based email accounts to all teachers.

Cheryl Rein (Caroline County Public Schools, MD) noted that her district is currently debating student use of email. Current policy forbids any use of email, but they are thinking of revising this policy and are interested in knowing what other districts are doing and what pitfalls to watch for.

Vendors:

Joe Malesich (Redman , WA) is the Microsoft account manager for Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey schools.

Mike Moumoutjis (Bluebell, PA) is from Airclic, which provides wireless solutions to school districts around the country, with a focus on intensive searching capabilities of large databases. For instance, in Boston Public Schools truancy officers use their product to connect with school information databases (interfaced with cellular phones) to access student's schedules, parent's phone numbers, and absenteeism records.

Nancy Willard represents Responsible Netizen at the University of Oregon . Her focus is on safe and responsible use of the Internet. She has a background in special education and law. Her new book is entitled Safe and Responsible Use of the Internet.

Jeff Patterson works for Gaggle.net, which is focused exclusively on email for schools. Their product gives teachers their own master accounts. He is participating to discuss why districts and schools should give students email accounts. He said that a big complaint he often hears from school administrators is that students are wasting their time with email, but he has strategies whereby email time is not wasted. For example, it can be employed to teach students to use correct grammar and punctuation in their messages.

There are two threads of the discussion today: 1) technical issues and solutions and 2) policy issues and educational solutions. Policy questions include educational questions such as the following:

What are the educational uses of email?
How can educators encourage those uses and discourages misuses?

Jon Landis asked about the Outlook Exchange for the MAC client, especially the OS10. Mr. Landis said that they were looking to move entire staff over to Exchange but are looking for an exchange option for OS10.

Technology specialist William Lee of Microsoft joined the conversation. He indicated that Microsoft has a process in place to support schools as they make decisions about products. He will send conference call participants an Exchange resource kit and an evaluation kit. They don't know the details yet, but it will be supported. Joe Malesich's email address will be sent to Mr. Landis. Robin Willet is the representative for Maryland. Mr. Malesich said to contact him, and he will forward the information to the correct person at Microsoft.

Eric Young discussed web access and email. They have Exchange 5.5 on a server and access email, but it is just within the district. They would like to get teachers Internet-based email so that it can be accessed through a browser outside the district. In Elizabeth School District teachers have Internet access from GroupWise. (GroupWise is the email solution offered by Novell, which is a the biggest competitor of Microsoft for email solutions. Novell was unable to arrange for a representative at the conference call.)

Mr. Malesich said that he would send everyone on this call an Exchange 2000 solution evaluation kit. Regarding the security issues/firewall, password security among teachers is the main issue. Teachers and coordinators need to watch out for inappropriate exchange of passwords.

Nancy Willard remarked that a large part of security issue is the degree to which users understand their responsibilities about protecting their passwords. Schools need to focus on what kind of information their staff needs to know and to understand the rules and the reasons for the rules. Setting policy is only the first step; communicating why it exists is the second and perhaps more important step. Another factor is whether coordinators have a support team to back them up. They need a support team to monitor the network. She felt that it is important to have an IT professional if a district is going to have this system.

Passwords don't require monitoring; with Exchange 2000 one can set up a password for everyone to use. The password changes periodically.

Jeff Patterson mentioned that in gaggle.net each teacher has the ability to go in and check passwords for their students.

Cheryl Rein said that all teachers have email on the MAC server, but board policy restricted students from using email. Also, students cannot access their hotmail accounts on school computers. The community didn't want the students to have computer access. This policy came about because of parental and teacher fears. However, the district teachers are saying that there are instructional activities they could do if their students had access to email. They will have to negotiate this with community. Should the school be issuing email accounts or allow them to use their hotmail accounts?

Richard Esperson noted that the Elizabeth School District used to allow students to have email accounts, but they had to pull this privilege after a student received threatening email messages. This might be one potential problem for districts.

Dr. Willard commented that part of issue that has emerged is that kids have the Internet at home, so the school thinks the pressure is off schools to teach Internet safety. A new survey conducted for the Girl Scouts of America (The Net Effect: Girls and New Media)

suggests that the level of Internet safety knowledge among students is low. The students already are on the Internet at home, so teachers should be educating students about proper use of Internet and email use. She asked, "Do you teach them how to avoid porn sites? Do you teach them what to do if they get these sites accidentally?" Thirty percent of girls reported that they had been sexually harassed in chat rooms, and 70% told their parents. Schools have to make sure that teachers have an educational use for email information. Then they need to find a more secure Internet system so that teachers have more control. Dr. Willard thought Gaggle.net might have a solution for this problem. Teachers can set up a system that gives them access to everything the kids do. Parents should also have access to student communication. Kids will try to outwit the filters. Email services are E-rate eligible. Gaggle.net is free, but it has advertising. The service from gaggle.net without advertising costs about $3 per st udent per year.

Dr. Willard wondered what the schools were doing to help students learn how to protect themselves outside the schools. She stressed that parents need to be involved at home. There is a lot of profiling, advertising, and porn on the hotmail, AOL, and yahoo systems. But regardless of what educators want, kids are using these systems and should learn how to protect themselves outside the protective systems of the school. She outlined three major considerations for educators in the use of email:

1. Email should be used by students to fulfill an educational need. (This is closely tied to professional development. Teachers need to be prepared!)
2. There needs to be a safe, secure communication system in place. Students should not use free email accounts that allow teachers to deal with safety. Monitoring and discipline needs to be done at a teacher level, not a district level. Teachers need to monitor and teach students how and when to use email correctly.
3. Parents need to have access to their students' accounts if they request them.

Joe Malesich described several systems that districts can purchase that work in conjunction with an IAS server to provide email security solutions including Bess N2H2.

Next Steps

Ms. Hendricks asks the participants about their next steps. She suggested that one next step is to ask what students need to know.
Mr. Esperson suggested that schools need 1) email policies for students and 2) discussion and resources for educational uses of email.
Mr. Malesich favored developing a curriculum for students awareness of Internet use. Barry Mansfield commented that there may already be a curricula on the Internet. The Internet Society for Technology and Education has some materials: Computer Ethics, Etiquette, and Safety for the 21st Century.
Dr. Willard's website is Responsiblenetizen.org. She advised schools to have students use nongendered user names to cut down on harassment.
Mr. Young said that he intends to do research on exchange 2000 to get their email system on the web.
Ms. Rein plans to investigate gaggle.net and read Dr. Willard's book.
Mr. Esperson is intrigued with the idea of creating lessons for Internet use and will continue to look into that. Providing email and promoting safe and educational uses of email are two important issues.
Dr. Willard noted that as web-based communication becomes more pervasive teachers are assigning students to do weblogs in which students are writing journal articles. They are becoming publishers, so they need to understand their responsibility to become responsible publishers.