Last Wednesday Year 3 students @ both the schools I teach in were introduced to email as they now have their own school email address. They were all VERY excited to finally see what their email address is!
The first task the students did was to create an email signature. They were quite amazed that the email program we use adds an email signature to the end of each email they compose!
The next area the students learnt about was ‘message highlighting’ whereby the students select a colour for incoming messages from 3 friends in the class, their own name and next week we will add their teacher’s name to message highlighting!!
Next the students were asked to write a letter to themselves asking themselves a question. However the students were to use the genre of ‘letter writing’ to complete this section.
Sample I used today…As we were running out of time this email was a very simple one
Hello Mrs Grasso
What is for dinner tonight?
From Mrs Grasso
The students used their own email address to email themselves ensuring they correctly typed their email address in the TO field. I explained to the students that it is important to fill in the ‘Subject’ field.
(Email protocol based on letter genre writing)
It was great to see the Year 4 students remember how to complete this task from last year and add their new friends names in the ‘message highlighting’ section!
In the next few weeks the students will explore ‘Email Etiquiette’ – what is appropriate and not appropriate to say/type in an email!
The students will compose 3 emails to different students in their class asking a question to encourage a reply!
We will cover how to correctly reply to an email as well!!
To complete our unit the students will then email a family member or member of staff sharing their new skills in emailing and sharing their new learning!!
Assessment: I have found a couple of samples on the Internet to assess student knowledge of emailing:
2. Email Rubric Sample
My thoughts so far…
- is email still useful in this world of Web 2.0?
- How can I use email to engage students in their world?
- Should appropriate letter writing protocols be taught to students using email?
- Is my role as an ICT teacher to explicitly teach the ‘mechanics’ of creating an email /should I be using the genre writing approach?
I’d love your thoughts and ideas of how you use em@il with your students/class/school?
- Do students in your school/class have their own email address?
- When do students begin using their own email address?
- How do you introduce em@il to your students?
- How is email incorporated into your curriculum?
- What email etiquette do students at your school follow?
- Do you use a rubric to assess student email skill ?